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The bear greeted Eiseeyou with an angry snarl. 


—Page 53 












The White Czar 

A Story of a Polar Bear 


BY 

CLARENCE HAWKES 

Author of “Pep, the Story of a Brave Dog” 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL 


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1923 

MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 



Copyright, 1923 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
Springfield, Massachusetts 

All Rights Reserved 


♦ w 
* < • 



Printed in United States of America 



Dedicated to 

THE MEMORY OF THAT DAUNTLESS AMERICAN 
WHO FIRST PLANTED THE STARS AND STRIPES 
AT THE NORTH POLE, REAR ADMIRAL PEARY. 


THE LASH OF THE NORTHLAND 


Where the rafters of the world-roof fade beneath 
the Northern Light, 

And the icy air smites shivering o ’er the floes; 

Where the bleak half-year of snn flees the black half- 
year of night, 

And the stars eternal stab the lifeless snows: 

There lies the land that’s God’s own land—the land of 
frozen sea, 

The land that lures the heart that brooks no sway 

And the lubber has no portion in its heritage with me; 

For it’s men, red-blooded men, that tread the way. 

And it’s, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it’s, Lift the sled along! 

And it’s, Climb the frozen hummocks where the wind 
is biting strong! 

And it’s, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold a-grip your gizzard! 

And it’s, Push for the top of the world, boys! 

Oh, the cliffs frown bleak and sullen on the tide of 
Melville Sound, 

Where the glaciers topple roaring to the deep; 

\nd the stately castled bergs in procession sail 
around, 


And the howling wind swings wider in its sweep. 

And the dogs’ heads now are drooping at the telling, 
killing pace, 

And our breath comes hard and frozen on the gale. 

Lord! it’s never stop or listen but it’s buckle to the 
race! 

For we’re men, red-blooded men, who break the 
trail. 

There’s a white bear at the headland; there’s a wal¬ 
rus on the floe; 

And the seals lie shining sleek beneath the sun. 

There’s a monster blubber whale—God! you see him 
slosh and blow!— 

And there’s hunger at the trigger of your gun. 

And the death-bolt, through the silence of the still, 
ghost-sheeted air, 

Leaps forth in sudden burst of lurid flame. 

Ho! there’s meat for them that take it—for dog and 
you a share. 

Ye are men, red-blooded men, who play the game. 

And it’s, Lash your team of huskies! 

And it’s, Lift the sled along! 

And it’s, Climb the frozen hummocks where the wind 
is biting strong! 

And it’s, Fight your way through blizzard 

With the cold a-grip your gizzard! 

And it’s, Push for the top of the world, boys! 

Andrew F. Underhill. By permission of the Out¬ 
ing Magazine. 


* 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface . 7 

I. The Start .21 

II. A Wild Musk Ox Hunt. 29 

III. Eiseeyou Meets the White Czar . . 48 

IV. Return of the Hunting Party . . .58 

Y. I-Wok, the Mighty.69 

VI. The Czarina.73 

VII. Whitie. 84 

VIII. Whitie and Little Oumauk .... 96 

IX. The White Czar. 112 

X. The Betrayal.129 

XI. The Wreck. 141 

XII. Two Captives. 161 

XIII. The Flight Northward. 177 

XIV. The Last Meeting. 192 
























1 












PREFACE 


The land of the Eskimo is the most inhos¬ 
pitable desolate portion of Mother Earth, 
inhabited by man. Well has the Eskimo 
need of his cheerful watch word, or saluta¬ 
tion, of Aksuse, which means be strong. 

The wind, the cold, the ice, the snow, the 
sterility of the land, and a hundred other 
forbidding conditions under which he lives, 
all call for strength. And strength he has 
both of body and soul and he fights the 
battle of life against the elements where any 
other race placed in his environment would 
surely perish. In one of Harry Whitney’s 
hunting stories he tells of a hunting party 
of Eskimos who set out on a reindeer hunt. 
They encountered a blizzard of great inten¬ 
sity and all of the party but one grizzled 
hunter turned back. The white hunter was 
much worried about the missing man, 
who happened to be one of his particular 
friends, but when he mentioned his fears to 

7 


8 Preface 

the Eskimos they only laughed. “He is all 
right,” they said. “He take care of him¬ 
self.” 

The hunter found later that his fears were 
groundless. 

When the Eskimo found himself over¬ 
taken by the blizzard, he simply dug a good 
sized house in a snow bank and the dogs 
also dug in and he slept as comfortably as 
he would have at home in his own igloo. 

The Eskimos are nominally Christian, 
those on the East coast of North America 
having come under the influence of the Mo¬ 
ravian church in 1771. The Eskimos of 
the Alaskan peninsula probably felt the in¬ 
fluence of the Greek church at about the 
same time as some of the most beautiful bells 
used upon the Greek chulches in Asia were 
cast in Alaska, one hundred and fifty years 
ago. 

The heathen conception that the Eskimo 
had of creation was much like that of most 
other primitive people. They believed that 
the earth was flat and supported by four pil¬ 
lars. But we believed that it was flat until 
about four hundred years ago. They be- 


Pi'eface 9 

lieved that the sky was the floor of another 
world where some of the good people went 
after death. They also thought that there 
was another world under our world where 
some of the spirits of the dead went. They 
were fatalists and believed they were ruled 
by external powers and these powers were 
usually bad. Much of this fatalism still 
clings to them. 

A missionary who was working among 
them tried to keep them from visiting among 
themselves during an epidemic. But they 
laughed at him, saying that if God intended 
that they would catch the disease they would 
get it. If he wanted them to die they would 
die, so what was the use of being careful. 

Eskimo Land extends from lower Lab¬ 
rador along the coast to Greenland, most of 
that cold island being inhabited by this 
strange people. In the north of Greenland 
is found the only pagan tribe of Eskimos. 
These savage men never mingle with the 
civilized Eskimo and are very hardy and 
skillful hunters. 

Along the northern coast of British Amer¬ 
ica this desolate land extends to the Alaskan 


10 Preface 

peninsula and down on the west coast to the 
Aleutian Islands, the Eskimo being closely 
related to the Aleutian Indians in customs 
and habits. 

The Eskimo is a Mongol and some time 
came across the Behring Straits, just as 
many of the species of large game did. 
Then he gradually worked along the north¬ 
ern coast of British America until he came 
as far south as Labrador. 

He is of medium height averaging about 
five feet five or six inches. He is rather 
stocky in build and often fat. His face is 
moon shaped and flat; his hair, black. 
Sometimes he has a small mustache, but 
never a beard. His eyes are small, black, 
and very keen. His habitual expression is 
a pleasant grin, by which you will know that 
he is usually good natured. His hands 
and feet are small, and his arms retain 
the roundness of the child until he is 
fully grown. In fact the Eskimos look 
very much like grown-up children. Their 
mental equipment is also that of the 
child. 

They have no chiefs as do other half civil- 


Preface 11 

ized races, but the tribe is ruled over by a 
wise man called the Headman. 

Their laws relate largely to hunting and 
to the possession of their utensils, but real 
estate they do not possess as they are con¬ 
stantly on the move following the good hunt¬ 
ing and fishing. 

The regulation Eskimo house is called an 
Igloo and it is usually made by using plank 
and small timbers for a frame which are ob¬ 
tained as drift wood and then covering the 
whole with sods and stone. This house is 
usually built on a side hill and is approached 
by a tunnel, perhaps fifty feet in length. So 
if you wish to enter an Eskimo house you 
must get down on all fours and crawl along 
a dark dirty hole. When you enter the 
house you pop up through the floor like a 
jack-in-the-box. 

What light there is comes in through a 
window made of seal membrane. The sleep¬ 
ing bench usually occupies the side of the 
room opposite the entrance. This is covered 
with musk ox robes on which the hair is a 
foot in length. These robes together with 
many kinds of furs and skins insure a warm 


12 Preface 

bed. This bed and the lamp are about the 
only furniture in the room. The lamp is a 
stone bowl from six to fifteen inches in di¬ 
ameter which is filled with seal oil. It is 
called Nan-uh. A moss wick is laid along 
one of the sloping sides of the bowl. The 
flame is white and, if properly tended, the 
light is even and fairly bright. All the 
cooking that the family do is done on this 
lamp and this accounts for the fact that the 
Eskimo eats most of his food raw. 

The floor of the Eskimo house is strewn 
with pieces of raw meat, skins, garments 
and sometimes hunting utensils, although 
these are usually hung on the walls. 

The families are large, consisting of eight 
and ten children, but the great mortality 
among the children keeps their numbers 
down. The adults also succumb easily to 
contagious diseases and die off like flies. 
That is why the entire Eskimo population 
of both North America and Asia is probably 
not more than forty thousand souls. 

In the igloo the children are supreme. 
They are never punished and, considering 
that fact, are models of behavior. The 


Preface 13 

parents seem almost to reverence the chil¬ 
dren just as the Chinese do their ancestors. 

The ambition of the boy is to grow up and 
become a great hunter, and the girl to make 
good reindeer skin boots and bird skin 
shirts. 

The young man seeks a mate when he 
arrives at the age of twenty. In the olden 
days before most of the Eskimos became 
Christian the young man bought his wife, 
but now he is more civilized. If he is very 
bashful, his parents will interview the 
parents of the girl upon whom his heart is 
set. If there is acquiescence all around, 
they at once set off to find a missionary or 
some teacher who is a notary public to 
marry them. If such officials are not avail¬ 
able, the marriage is celebrated according 
to Eskimo customs, or not at all. As soon 
as they are married, the man marches away 
to his igloo if he is lucky enough to have one. 
His new wife follows obediently behind, 
walking in his footsteps. He never looks 
back until they reach the house. 

The principal accomplishment that the 
Eskimo wants in his wife is that she be a 


14 Preface 

good boot maker. The reindeer boots are a 
most important article of apparel with this 
strange people and a good boot maker is a 
prize. The wife also will be expected to 
skin most of the small animals such as foxes, 
martins and wolverines and to prepare their 
skins for market. In fact, this and sewing 
make up almost her entire life. 

As soon as the baby comes, there will be 
a new idol in the igloo for the Eskimos are 
very fond of their children. This little 
snow baby will be tucked away in the 
mother’s hood whenever she goes outside. 
When in the house, the baby will occupy a 
small bag made of reindeer skin and warmly 
lined. No white man will make more sacri¬ 
fices for his family than will the untutored 
Eskimo. It really takes a deal of labor on 
his part to provide for the wants of a large 
family and a team of dogs, for every well-to- 
do Eskimo supports a dog team. 

It would astonish a white man to know 
how much this Eskimo family will eat. An 
adult Eskimo will eat ten pounds of raw 
meat per day. So a family of twelve with 
ten dogs would want about a hundred 


Preface 15 

pounds of meat and fish each day. It is 
quite important to feed the dogs enough so 
that they will not tear down the reindeer 
skin tent and eat that, or chew up the traces 
of their own harnesses. They often try to 
do this when in harness. To cure them the 
driver pounds a dog’s teeth until they are 
so sore he cannot chew the leather. They 
are very cruel with their dogs and never pet 
them or show them any extra kindness. 
The Eskimo says that kindness spoils the 
dogs and makes them soft. 

The Eskimo medicine man is still some¬ 
what in evidence, but for the most part they 
rely on the medicine furnished by the 
missionaries, or by the government teachers. 
Eskimo musicians who play loudly on drums 
furnish the music for the crude dances of 
this simple people. About the only relax¬ 
ation of the Eskimo is visiting. He is very 
sociable and as the tribes intermarry, every 
one is every one else’s cousin. 

The women are beautiful garment makers. 
Their stitches are so even that one would 
think they had been made by machinery. 
The garments always fit well, although no 


16 Preface 

patterns are used. Nearly all the garments 
are made from skins sewed together with 
sinews from the reindeer or the narwal. 

The Eskimo shirt is especially beautiful, 
being made of about a hundred skins of the 
auk, one of the most useful birds in the 
arctic. The coat made of reindeer skin is 
called a parka and is very warm. Not even 
the arctic weather can penetrate this won¬ 
derful clothing. 

The Eskimo men are skillful sledge 
makers and also carve ivory ornaments from 
the walrus and the narwal tusks. In mak¬ 
ing the sledge no nails are used, but the 
crosspieces are lashed to the runners by 
means of thongs. The Eskimo despises 
nails and screws which he says break too 
soon. 

The Eskimo is a hunter and a fisherman. 
His skill in each of these professions will 
discount that of any white man who tries to 
hunt in his territory. Hunting the walrus 
is perhaps his most exciting and dangerous 
sport. He harpoons this huge beast and 
then the handle of the harpoon comes out 
and the walrus is allowed to drag the line 


Preface 17 

with a float attached. Finally the hunter 
creeps up and drives more harpoons into 
the wounded beast or dispatches him with a 
rifle. They are very successful in lifting 
these great carcasses upon the ice. Two 
men by means of a rude pulley will walk a 
walrus out of the water on to the ice, 
although his weight is about a ton. This is 
a feat that would severely tax the resources 
of a white man. 

The narwal, which is also called the uni¬ 
corn of the sea, likewise affords lively sea 
fishing. This creature is also harpooned 
and dispatched as is the walrus. 

The seal is also indispensable to the Es¬ 
kimo. He gets oil for his lamp, and food 
and clothing from that much-hunted crea¬ 
ture. 

The Eskimo hunts the musk ox and the 
reindeer, as well as bears. The musk ox is 
hunted by the help of the dog teams. The 
dogs are cut loose when the game is finally 
sighted and they soon bring it to bay. Rein¬ 
deer are hunted by means of the still hunt 
and they often lead the hunter many miles 
before he gets a shot. 


18 Preface 

All of this hunting is of the most stren¬ 
uous kind. It is done on the ice, or in the 
open sea, and over the roughest country 
imaginable. Cold that would freeze the 
white man’s blood in his veins is cheerfully 
endured. Large and dangerous animals 
are encountered. The Eskimo’s only de¬ 
sire is that he may make a good kill for the 
woman and the little ones at hoige in the 
igloo. 

The Eskimo’s fishing is not as strenuous 
as the hunting, so the women often help 
about that. A painted float or colored 
hooks are used, but no bait. Dried fish is 
the chief article of food for the dogs on long 
hunting trips. The eider ducks also fur¬ 
nish good eating, while thousands of eggs 
are cached each summer by the provident 
families. It will not matter if they are half 
rotten when eaten. 

The Eskimo’s igloo is always very untidy. 
Vermin abound and the white man stop¬ 
ping for a day in an Eskimo village is in¬ 
fected. 

The Eskimos count to twenty on their 
fingers and toes, but this is the limit of their 


Preface 19 

figuring. After that they shake their 
heads. 

One cannot become acquainted with these 
simple children of the snow, for they are 
really but grown up children and not admire 
their pluck, their skill, and their good 
nature. Hardship they expect as much as 
the white man expects good fortune. 
Cold they laugh at, and they make Mother 
Nature give up for their daily needs where 
she is most niggardly in some particulars. 
But birds abound in these cold regions as 
they do not in warmer climes. 

So here is wishing you luck, Mr. and Mrs. 
Eskimo and all the little Eskimos, be there 
ten or twenty. You certainly make a good 
fight against hard conditions. You always 
grin, even when things go hard, and by that 
token we know your heart is all right. You 
never swear, and, although you are rather 
quick-tempered, you soon forgive, and that 
also is commendable. 

You love your children and you have 
many of them, both of which are virtues the 
white man might emulate. 

You live up to all the good you know, 


20 Preface 

and that is more than the rest of us do. If 
your lives are cramped and narrow and your 
lot hard, you cannot help that. You make 
the best of your lives where fate has placed 
you, and we take off our hats to you and 
wish you longer summers and shorter 
winters, and plenty of good hunting and 
fishing, so there will be joy in the igloo and 
happiness in your brave hearts. 


The White Czar 


CHAPTER I 

THE START 

Eskimo Town nestled under the lea of a 
jagged rockstrewn hillside. This was to es¬ 
cape the winds as much as possible. But 
there is no nook nor cranny in these northern 
latitudes where the biting wind will not 
penetrate in certain times of the year. The 
Eskimo huts called igloos were partly buried 
by the drifting snow since they were built 
partially underground. These facts helped 
to keep them warm. 

When the thermometer creeps down to 
fifty and sixty below zero and finally refuses 
to register the cold, there is need of every 
possible protection. 

The Eskimo Village contained only about 
a score of igloos and perhaps two hundred 
souls. This was about twenty families, for 

the Eskimo has many children. 

21 



22 


The White Czar 


The frames of these strange houses were 
made of drift wood or trunks of small trees, 
filled in with sod and dirt. The whole was 
finally covered with a thick layer of sods. 
The front door of the igloo was a very 
strange one, consisting of an underground 
tunnel perhaps fifty feet in length. This is 
to keep out the wind and the cold. The 
dogs sleep in the tunnel during very cold 
nights so it is usually rather filthy, but that 
does not trouble an Eskimo. Dirt and ver¬ 
min are his usual daily companions. The 
chief thing with him is to keep warm. 

There was much excitement on this dark 
cold winter morning in Eskimo town. Men 
might be seen running about from igloo 
to igloo. Occasionally they stopped and 
pointed to the north and cried, “Oming- 
mong, ’ 9 excitedly. This is the Eskimo name 
for the musk ox. A musk ox hunting party 
was to set out that morning and many of the 
men and women were going to see them off. 

In the igloo of Eiseeyou there was much 
excitement. But excitement probably ran 
higher in other igloos, for Eiseeyou’s family 
was a small one and he was a young man. 


The Start 


29 

But he was a great hunter although still in 
his twenties. When he was thirty-five, he 
would have a family of ten children like the 
other older men, if he was lucky. 

In Eiseeyou’s igloo his kooner (wife) was 
bustling about laying out his clothing and 
selecting some of the best meat for the jour¬ 
ney. This consisted of walrus meat and 
hide—the latter so tough that a white man 
never could have chewed it, also reindeer 
meat and a couple of eider ducks left over 
from the cache of last summer. There must 
also be a generous supply of dried fish for 
the dog teams. 

On this morning Eiseeyou dressed even 
more warmly than usual. His garments 
were made of skins; bear, reindeer, wolver¬ 
ine, and seal skin being the favorites. 

First Eiseeyou donned two auk-skin 
shirts. These shirts were close-fitting. 
Over that he put his parka made of rein¬ 
deer skin and lined with a fine warm fur. 
Then he pulled on some reindeer skin pants, 
also lined, and lastly his famous reindeer 
boots. These were as soft and pliable as 


24 The White Czar 

though they had been oiled that very morn¬ 
ing. 

Finally Eiseeyou slipped on a heavy pair 
of reindeer skin gloves and he was dressed 
and ready for the trip as far as warm furs 
could make him. His rifle, his hunting 
knife, his matches, and all such things that 
he might need on the hunt were carefully 
inspected. 

Outside the igloo eight half-starved 
Eskimo dogs were fighting and snarling 
over their dried fish. They were but one 
generation removed from the wolf and wolf¬ 
ish in looks and disposition. The Eskimo 
drives them relentlessly with his short- 
handled whip, on which is a long black sinis¬ 
ter lash. This lash is often inadequate 
to express his displeasure, so he sometimes 
gets off the sledge, called a Komatik, and 
clubs a dog to death with the bone handle of 
his whip. Life in this wild, fierce country 
matches the clime, so it is often very brutal. 

Although the snow blew and the wind 
howled outside, yet inside the igloo it was 
fairly warm. The body heat of Eiseeyou’s 
little family together with the heat of the 


The Start 25 

nanuk or stone lamp tempered the Arctic 
cold. 

The young hunter ate ravenously on this 
cold morning. He must have much raw 
meat inside him to keep out the cold. So 
he devoured over three pounds before he 
was satisfied. This he occasionally sea¬ 
soned with seal oil, which is the Eskimos’ 
only salt and pepper. 

Little Oumauk, a boy of three, watched 
these preparations with eager black eyes. 
Even at that age he had begun to dream of 
the day when he might also be a hunter. 

His sister, who was only ten months old, 
was sleeping peacefully in her queer little 
reindeer pouch or pocket, which looked like 
a large watch pocket. It was resting 
against the wall and also on the sleeping 
bench. 

Finally when Eiseeyou was ready, he 
crawled with his rifle through the long tun¬ 
nel to the outside world. The dogs had fin¬ 
ished their fish and were leaping and whin¬ 
ing, eager to be off. They had sensed the 
long hard trip and were as eager as the men. 
Eiseeyou dragged out his Komatik. It was 


26 


The White Czar 


long and narrow, perhaps fourteen feet long 
and two and a half feet wide. The runners 
flared out slightly so that they would not 
skid. This sledge was Eskimo-made and a 
wonderful piece of work. Not a nail or a 
screw had been used in its construction. 
The cross pieces were lashed to the runners 
by means of thongs. These thongs were as 
tough as steel. 

The Eskimo dog-team is harnessed quite 
differently from that of the white man. 
The white man’s team travels tandem, each 
dog behind his fellow and all strung out in 
a long line. The Eskimo’s team is fan¬ 
shaped, and each dog has his separate set of 
traces running back to the sledge. 

The dogs were so eager that Eiseeyou 
experienced some difficulty in harnessing, 
but soon other men came running to help 
and the team was made ready. His weap¬ 
ons and supplies were firmly lashed to the 
sledge. Then two other teams came creak¬ 
ing up to Eiseeyou’s igloo. These sledges 
were also drawn by eager, yelping, strain¬ 
ing dogs, their eyes gleaming like wolves’. 
Often they showed their fangs and snapped 


The Start 


27 


savagely at each other. Then the long 
black lash would come hissing about their 
faces and they would subside. 

At last everything was in readiness. 
Nearly half the inhabitants of Eskimo 
Town were there to see them off. The three 
sledges led the way to the top of the hill, the 
drivers restraining their teams with diffi¬ 
culty that those on foot might be at the top 
of the hill to see them off. Finally the crest 
was reached. Here the wind and the cold 
smote them like a scourge from the very 
pole, but they did not mind. The waiting 
men and women huddled together for 
warmth while the sledges made the start. 
Then the drivers unloosed their ugly whips 
and cried, “Hoo, hoo!” which means mush, 
and the straining teams sprang into their 
traces. The Komatiks creaked and groaned, 
and the ghostly little caravan passed 
rapidly down the hillside and over the 
frozen barrens. Faster and faster they 
went. Eagerly the inhabitants of Eskimo 
Town strained after them until finally the 
snow hid them from sight. Then they went 
quickly back to their warm igloos to 


28 


The White Czar 


wait for the return of the hunting party. 

It was that same old story of the women, 
the old men, and the children, waiting for 
the return of the hunter or the fisherman. 
The head of the house gone upon a hard and 
dangerous expedition to wrest a meagre 
living from the treasury of Mother Nature. 
Many cold dark days would pass before they 
saw the three komatiks and the brave hunt¬ 
ers again. 


CHAPTER II 


A WILD MUSK OX HUNT 

It was a wild and desolate land towards 
which the three komatiks or sledges, had 
pointed their noses. Such a trip as only the 
hardiest white men ever take. Even then 
they have an escort of Eskimos and go well 
equipped. But to the hardy Child of the 
Snow, it was just another exciting adven¬ 
ture in his adventurous life. There were 
few landmarks that would have helped a 
white man. But the Eskimo has a wonder¬ 
ful bump of location, and this is almost as 
good as a compass. It also enables him to 
draw very accurate maps of any country he 
has visited. But strangely enough he has 
little idea of distance. 

In this desolate land there was almost no 
timber just a few creeping willows and rein¬ 
deer moss. This was interspersed with a 
wild medley of rocks, large boulders and 
small stones. Cliffs and ledges intersected 

29 


30 


The White Czar 


the trail and made the going about as hard 
as travelling upon Mother Earth could well 
be. The country had a wild unfinished look 
where the face of the earth showed at all. 
This was upon high precipitous hills where 
the arctic winds had full sweep. 

Eiseeyou and his sledge led the way. 
Although a young man, Eiseeyou was the 
most skillful and successful hunter in 
Eskimo town. He was also a famous guide. 
He could go and come over these frozen 
barren lands in the arctic night almost as 
well as any of the other Eskimos could in 
the full glare of day. 

So this was why he led the little caravan. 
He was closely followed by his friend, 
Tukshu, while Tunkine, whose dog team 
was not so fast, usually trailed a score of 
rods behind. 

For hours the three komatiks lurched and 
slid after the straining dogs, their three 
drivers ever on the alert, sometimes swing¬ 
ing the team this way or that with a crack 
of the long whiplash. The winds howled 
and the snow beat in their faces, which were 
white with frost, and the dogs’ muzzles were 


31 


A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 

white with the frost from their own breath. 

The three Eskimos usually ran beside the 
komatiks. This was partly to keep their 
feet from freezing, and also to lighten the 
load. When they were tired, they would 
jump on and ride for a mile or two; but for 
the better part of the way they ran. 

The pace at first was seven or eight miles 
an hour, but it soon slowed down to four or 
five, which was maintained for the greater 
part of the day. But it took nerve and 
strength and many lashes from the long 
sinister whip to keep up this pace. 

The Eskimo is merciless as far as his dog 
team is concerned. He drives with both 
the lash and the butt of his whip. He 
never pets his dogs or shows them any kind¬ 
ness. The slightest misbehavior on the part 
of the team brings terrible punishment. 

It is no strange occurrence, when a dog 
gets vicious in the traces, for his driver to 
club him to death with the butt of his whip. 
But they usually obey implicitly. They 
have learned in this hard school that it pays. 
Wild hard conditions such as those under 
which the Eskimo lives breed brutality, but 


32 


The White Czar 


this brutality never extends to the Eskimo’s 
family which he treats most tenderly. 

Once they stopped in the lea of a cliff to 
eat some raw meat which was partly frozen 
and to rest the dog teams. But it was not 
for long. The dogs when in harness are 
always restless. If left too long, they get 
to fighting and tangle up the traces. So 
after a quarter of an hour the procession 
plunged on through the white silence. 

There were few signs of life. They had 
seen some foxtracks, also some snowshoe 
rabbit tracks. A few ptarmigan had been 
flushed. But for the greater part it was 
just a mere waste of snow and jagged rocks, 
desolate beyond the power of words to 
paint. 

Occasionally they scanned the landscape 
for Omingmong. 

When they came to a high hill, some one 
of the party would climb to its very top 
and look in every direction for signs of 
Omingmong. But nothing was seen of him 
that day. 

Toward the middle of the afternoon a 
terrible blizzard struck the little party. 


A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 83 

The snow blew so that the drivers could 
scarcely see the dog teams. It came so 
suddenly that they had no time to get to 
cover. For a few minutes they struggled 
blindly, Eiseeyou’s bump of locality stand¬ 
ing them in good stead. With great gen¬ 
eralship he led the three sledges into a shel¬ 
tered valley where the storm did not beat so 
badly. But even here it was difficult to see 
fifty feet away. The cold also increased, 
and the party decided that they could go no 
further that day. 

So they tunneled into a hard snowbank 
and made a very comfortable snow house. 
That is, they thought it comfortable, for it 
sheltered them from the wind and kept out 
some of the cold. 

The dogs also were quick to burrow in, 
and half an hour after they had decided to 
stop for the night only the three komatiks 
showed that a hunting party was hidden 
somewhere in the snow drifts. 

The men soon satisfied their appetites, 
which were like wolves, with raw meat while 
the dogs were fed their allowance of dried 
fish. They talked for a while and inquired 


34 


The White Czar 


of each other as to what the kooners and the 
children in the igloos in Eskimo town might 
be doing. But this was not for long. They 
had travelled over forty miles that day. 
Much of the way the going had been very 
bad, and they were tired. 

Soon sleep claimed them. They slept 
just as peacefully in the heart of a snow 
bank as they would have in the igloo at 
home. Meanwhile Omingmong the musk 
ox the one who had caused all this trouble 
was peacefully munching reindeer moss a 
few miles away to the north west. 

The Musk Ox is the least known of all 
the large North American animals. This is 
because he ranges so far northward and it is 
only since 1900 that specimens have been 
taken captive and brought to civilization to 
be studied. His range is around the arctic 
circle, from sixty-nine degrees to seventy- 
five. 

Commander Peary shot a musk ox within 
half a mile of the northern point of Green¬ 
land, the most northerly land in the world. 

Although Omingmong has the name of 
musk-ox yet he possesses some sheep 


A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 35 

characteristics. His hair is so long that his 
outline is quite hidden. The outer hair is 
nearly a foot in length and brushes on the 
snow when he walks. It also nearly hides 
his rather slight spindle legs. Imagine, if 
you can, an animal about four and a half 
feet tall and six and a half long, covered 
with a thick long coat which hides all but the 
face and the strange horns and you have a 
fairly good picture of Omingmong. His 
horns are really quite as characteristic as 
the rest of his queer makeup. On the fore¬ 
head they are very much flattened, so that 
they form a sort of helmet for the head. 

In the middle line of the forehead they 
meet, but flare out again lower down, and 
finally flare out still more and upward. 

At the point, they are very sharp and 
deadly when Omingmong is enraged. The 
Eskimo dog teams who bring him to bay 
have discovered this to their sorrow. 

The color of Omingmong’s coat is a dirty 
yellow brown and one of the two species has 
a gray band across the forehead. 

On the back he has a saddle mark of 
darker hair. His tail which is only three 


36 


The White Czar 


inches long is hidden in the long hair. 

These wonderful hides with the outer hair 
a foot long upon them, and a thick fine 
under coat at the skin, make a robe unsur¬ 
passed in the animal kingdom. It is with 
such robes as these that the Eskimo sleeping 
benches are spread in midwinter. The 
flesh of Omingmong is also very good eating. 
It is only when the meat is allowed to stand 
too long before dressing that it has the 
musky quality the name indicates. 

So it was both for food and raiment that 
Eiseeyou and his hunting party had come. 

Omingmong usually goes in herds of from 
twenty to fifty head, although smaller herds 
are often encountered. So if the Eskimo 
sights the coveted prize he usually finds 
more than one. 

How this strange animal subsists in this 
frozen snow-covered barren land is one of 
the mysteries of nature. After allowing 
him all the creeping willow and saxifrage 
and dried grass that he can paw out from 
under the snow, yet it is strange how 
he keeps in good flesh where any other clo¬ 
ven-hoofed animal would starve. Mother 


A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 37 

Nature has given him the secret and he 
guards it well. 

Promptly on the following day, although 
there was little to indicate where one day be- 

t. 

gan and another left off, Eiseeyou and his 
party dug out of their snowbank, ate some 
raw meat themselves, fed the dog teams 
their frozen fish, and were off, much re¬ 
freshed by their night’s sleep in the snow¬ 
bank with the thermometer from thirty to 
forty degrees below zero. 

They travelled as they had the day before, 
Eiseeyou going ahead and the other teams 
following his lead. Every half mile or so 
they stopped to reconnoiter, for they were 
now approaching the land of Omingmong 
and must go cautiously. For six weary 
hours they scoured the country, Eiseeyou 
making several detours to explore likely 
musk ox feeding ground. 

At last their patience was rewarded just 
as such patient plodding always is. The 
two Eskimos travelling behind noticed that 
Eiseeyou had brought his komatik to a 
stand. So they stopped and watched his 
motions. He stood for several seconds 


88 


The White Czar 


shading his eyes with his hand and looking 
intently to the north west. Finally he 
motioned them to come forward. When 
the two other komatiks were alongside, 
Eiseeyou informed his companions that he 
had discovered Omingmong—only two head 
feeding half a mile away hut there were 
probably more near by. He would go to 
the top of the hill and reconnoiter while 
the others minded the dog teams. 

It seemed to his companions that 
Eiseeyou would never return. They had 
travelled so far and endured so much hard¬ 
ship to reach Omingmong that they were 
eager to get at him. 

Finally Eiseeyou returned his face^ 
wreathed with smiles. 

He had discovered the entire herd, a dozen 
strong. They were not over three quar¬ 
ters of a mile away. 

So the excited hunting party got out their 
rifles and made ready while Eiseeyou led the 
way with his fleet dog team. 

They proceeded by stealth as far as pos¬ 
sible but finally they came out in the open 
and the herd sighted them and were off. 


A Wild Mush Ox Hunt 39 

Then they lashed their dog teams to their 
best pace and the chase was on. 

At first the sledges did not seem to gain, 
no matter how hard the teams ran, but 
finally after about five miles they drew up to 
within a quarter of a mile of the herd. 
Then Eiseeyou gave the word to cut loose 
the dogs, and the exciting part of the chase 
began. 

The worst enemy that Omingmong has to 
fear in his frozen north, next to man, is the 
great white wolf. This terrible wolf is 
closely related to the gray timber wolf found 
further south. He is the corsair of the 
north and woe betide the quarry that this 
blood thirsty wolf trails. He hunts in 
packs of from five to twelve members and 
can run to earth or bring to bay almost any¬ 
thing that runs upon four legs. He hunts 
the musk ox, the reindeer and even the fleet 
snowshoe rabbit, while many a ptarmigan 
he noses out of the new snow and kills with 
a single crunch of his powerful jaws. 

So when Omingmong first notices the 
pack of Eskimo dogs trailing him, he prob¬ 
ably concludes that it is a wolf pack, gone 


40 


The White Czar 


foolish. For the white wolf always pursues 
silently, while the Eskimo pack often yelps 
with savage glee, especially when the musk 
ox has at last been brought to bay. 

As soon as the traces were cut, the Eskimo 
sledge dogs were off at a wild pace. One 
never would have thought they had been on 
the trail for the better part of the last thirty 
six hours. 

They spread out like the wolf pack to 
keep Omingmong’s little herd from spread¬ 
ing. This likewise enabled them to cut 
across at either end, if the quarry turned 
sharply, and thus gain ground. For two 
miles the trail led across open country, 
although it was very rocky and rough. 
Eiseeyou, Tukshu, and Tunkine followed on 
foot. Finally the hotly pursued little herd 
came to a mountain with very steep sides. 
The winds had blown the loose snow from it 
and it was covered with a glare crust nearly 
as slippery as ice. Up the sides of this shin¬ 
ing steep the musk ox herd scrambled, run¬ 
ning like mountain goats or bighorn sheep. 
Nor did the yelping pack stop at the ascent. 



Lit/tihyr** X>«u. 

The Eskimo sledge dogs were off at a wild pace. 























* 


















A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 41 

Up they scrambled, slipping and sliding, but 
holding on in some way and keeping close to 
the terrified musk ox herd. 

Nor did the three Eskimos pause when 
they reached the bottom of the hill and 
looked up its shining slippery slopes. It 
was a climb for which a white man would 
have needed creepers and an Alpine staff, 
but not so the hardy Eskimo. He had come 
seventy five miles through the snow and the 
storm, and now he was not going to be held 
up at the very hour of victory by any ascent, 
no matter how hard or dangerous. Up the 
three intrepid hunters went, Eiseeyou lead¬ 
ing the way. How they found foothold was 
a mystery. They clung where there was 
seemingly nothing to cling to. Like flies 
their feet and hands seemed to cling to the 
slippery slopes. Higher and higher they 
went as the musk ox herd fled. 

Once Eiseeyou stopped for a moment and 
looked down. It made a shiver run through 
even his steely nerves. What if he should 
slip or ever get started down the mountain. 
There would certainly be mourning in his 


42 


The White Czar 


igloo. After that he kept his face reso¬ 
lutely looking upward towards the fleeing 
omingmongs. 

Finally at the top of the mountain with 
their shaggy backs to a cliff the musk ox 
herd came to bay. 

Many hard battles with the white wolves 
had taught both the musk ox and the rein¬ 
deer herds that their only safety when 
brought to bay in this manner was in pre¬ 
senting a solid front of horns to the enemy. 
If it had been merely a question of the yelp¬ 
ing snapping Eskimo dogs, they would have 
beaten them off easily. 

This was plainly evidenced by the fact 
that when Eiseeyou arrived on the scene 
one of the younger dogs who had never seen 
Omingmong before had paid the price of 
too much valor with his life. He lay in the 
snow beneath the hoofs of a mighty bull 
gored to death, while another limped to¬ 
wards Eiseeyou fatally wounded. 

Eiseeyou did not at once begin firing into 
the herd. They were all bunched against 
the wall and the dogs held them safely so he 
waited for Tukshu and Tunkine, The Es- 


A Wild Musk Ox Hunt 43 

kimo is very fair in his division of the kill. 
They often give a portion of the kill to those 
present, even though they take no active 
part. When his two companions at last 
arrived, the three formed in a half circle 
perhaps a hundred feet from the herd. It 
was not sportsmanlike, but simply a killing 
for meat. It was meat and hides that they 
were after, so they did their work with their 
high power modern rifles as quickly as pos¬ 
sible. In almost as short a time as it takes 
to tell it the herd of Omingmongs were kick¬ 
ing in the snow all dead or mortally 
wounded. 

But one tragic thing occurred which was 
not on the hunter’s program. The herd 
had come to hay very close to the further 
side of the mountain, so that when the firing 
was nearly over the last three musk ox man¬ 
aged to struggle to the edge of the mountain 
and when shot toppled over the side and 
went sliding like woolly toboggans down 
the mountainside. 

The half starved Eskimo dogs, who had 
been driven frantic by the smell of blood 
were quick to notice the three Omingmong 


44 


The White Czar 


sliding down the mountain far from the 
reach of the hunters. So without waiting 
to see if they were to share in the kill near 
at hand, they all started slipping and sliding 
after the dead musk ox which were now a 
score of rods out on the plain. 

With a groan Eiseeyou noted their intent. 
These three Omingmongs were the very 
largest of the herd. Their beautiful robes 
would be torn to shreds. The best of the 
meat would be eaten before they could 
arrive on the scene. He should have 
guarded against it. 

Then a wild thought came into the mind 
of the intrepid hunter. 

This side of the mountain was not as steep 
as the one they had climbed. It was a hair- 
raising slide. There might be obstacles in 
the way that he could not see, but these robes 
at the bottom of the mountain must be 
saved. 

So he cried to his companions, “The dogs! 
They spoil robes and meat. I will go to stop 
them. ’ ? 

With these words he tightened his belt 
and took the cartridges from his rifle. 


A Wild Mush Ox Hunt 45 

His companions remonstrated with him. 
They told him he would surely be killed. 
They reminded him of his kooner and his 
children in the igloo in Eskimo Town. But 
Eiseeyou was firm. 

He had made up his mind. He would 
go. So he gripped his rifle that he might 
use it as an Alpine staff to guide his down¬ 
ward plunge, shook off his companions, and 
squatting down slipped over the icy slope. 

The way in which he gained speed 
amazed and terrified him. Almost before he 
knew it, he was slipping down the mountain 
side like a streak. A shower of ice and 
snow came rattling down behind him, but 
he left these smaller bits far behind. 

Out and in among the rocks he guided his 
perilous flight by thrusting his rifle muzzle 
against the icy crust. Several times he 
barely missed jagged boulders that suddenly 
flashed in his path. Once he plunged 
over a sheer drop of fifteen feet and thought 
he was lost. If he failed to keep his erect 
position and started to travel head first, or 
sideways, he would surely be dashed upon 
some rock. It was only by guiding his 


46 


The White Czar 


course with the greatest skill and dexterity 
that he had thus far gone safely. But with 
a great effort he gained his feet again 
and went plunging on to the bottom of the 
hill. 

The frightful slide down the mountainside 
had been nearly half a mile, but in about 
fifteen seconds after Eiseeyou had slipped 
over the crest, he stood up and waved his 
rifle to his two companions. At the sight 
they crossed themselves and gave a deep sigh 
of relief. 

He reached the three musk ox which had 
taken the plunge ahead of him just in time 
to beat off the dogs and save the robes for 
his igloo. He then sat down upon one of 
the carcasses to rest. It had been a fright¬ 
ful experience, but he was glad he had taken 
it. His children and his good kooner 
would be warm and comfortable because he 
had been brave. Besides it would be a great 
story to tell on wild nights when the winds 
howled outside and the snow blew in white 
sheets. Yes, he would be a hero in Eskimo 
Town. At the thought a pleasant grin over- 


A Wild Mush Ox Hunt 47 

spread the face of Eiseeyou and his brave 
heart was very glad. 

He had added one more laurel to his rep¬ 
utation as a mighty hunter. 


CHAPTER III 


EISEEYOU MEETS THE CZAR 

After sliding the rest of the musk ox kill 
down the mountainside, the three successful 
hunters gorged themselves upon raw meat 
and also fed the dogs as much as they could 
hold. Then they made camp and were soon 
peacefully sleeping. But this night they 
slept by turns, one keeping watch over their 
great supply of fresh meat. The whole of 
the next day was spent in skinning and cut¬ 
ting up the thirteen carcasses. Even so 
they had to work hard before darkness set 
in. So they again camped in the lea of the 
slippery mountain. 

Early the next day they packed the meat 
and robes upon the three sledges. When 
they had loaded each komatik to its capac¬ 
ity, they cached the rest of the meat, cover¬ 
ing it with boulders, and marked the spot, 
in case they came that way again. 

48 


Eiseeyou Meets the Czar 49 

The meat would at once freeze and there 
was a good chance of finding it still eatable 
according to Eskimo appetites even six 
months hence. 

When everything had been made ready on 
the third morning after sighting the Oming- 
mongs, it was decided that Tucshu and 
Tunkine should proceed on the journey 
towards Eskimo town while Eiseeyou pros¬ 
pected about for the balance of the day for 
more Omingmongs. He could easily over¬ 
take the party as the komatiks were loaded 
very heavily and would travel slow. 

So Eiseeyou took fresh meat enough with 
him for a day’s rations, filled his belt with 
a new supply of cartridges, and set off. 

They had come northward parallel with 
the sea, not going more than twenty miles 
inland at any time. So Eiseeyou turned 
back towards the sea, wishing to explore 
that part of the country. If he was looking 
for an adventure he certainly found it, but 
not in just the form that he would have se¬ 
lected had he had anything to say about it. 
But when one goes prospecting in a wilder¬ 
ness like this, he must expect to meet almost 


50 


The White Czar 


any sort of a wild stranger. So if Eiseeyou 
was astonished, he may also have surprised 
the Czar. 

The polar hear, whom I call the Czar of 
the Frozen North, is in a class quite by him¬ 
self. He is not nearly as large as his cousin 
the Kadiak bear, but that huge beast in¬ 
habits a comparatively small area and is 
little known, while the white Czar ranges 
along the shores of the Arctic sea round the 
entire world. His scientific name, Thal- 
arctos Maritimus, means Bear of the Sea. 

He is also called the water bear. By this 
you will know that he is very much at home 
in the water. In fact cold baths are his 
specialty. With the thermometer register¬ 
ing twenty below zero, this hardy fellow will 
plunge into the Arctic sea and swim for 
hours among the floating ice cakes. He 
also dives with great ease, but rarely goes 
further than a day’s journey inland. 

His home is on the icefloe and he travels 
with it, going northward in the summer and 
coming back southward in the winter. 

Like the walrus, the seal, the narwal, 
and some of the foxes, he follows the ice- 



Eiseeyou Meets the Czar 51 

floe because it gives him such good eating. 

He lives upon seals both small and large, 
walrus calves, and dead whales, and goes 
ashore for roots and plants to vary his diet. 

The Eskimos sometimes hunt him on the 
icefloes with their dogs and it makes excit¬ 
ing sport, in which the dogs often come to 
grief. When cornered or wounded, the 
white Czar is a terrible fighter. 

This bear, who is sometimes seen in zoos 
is a tall lank fellow and always snow white. 
His coat never changes its color. Many of 
the arctic animals and birds are snow white 
to correspond with the snowfields. 

The specimen of Thalarctos Maritimus 
which Eiseeyou met on that cold arctic 
morning, afterwards measured fifty inches 
at the shoulders and seven feet in length. 
His weight was probably about six hundred 
pounds. When we add to this the fact that 
he is as quick as a cat, and can strike 
a blow that will crush a man’s skull, it 
will readily be seen that he is no mean 
adversary. 

White TTrsus is longlegged and slab sided, 




52 


The White Czar 


tall at the shoulders and with a rather snaky 
head. His jaws are very powerful and his 
claws long and terrible. His feet are cov¬ 
ered with hair on the bottom, so his track 
is very large. 

For three hours after leaving his friends 
all went well with Eiseeyou. He located 
two small herds of musk ox and was well 
pleased with his observations. 

Presently Eiseeyou spied another of those 
strange rocky mountains rising abruptly 
from the barrens. It was just such a hill as 
that upon which they had made their kill. 

As it afforded a good lookout, he began 
slowly ascending. Once at the top he would 
be able to see all the Omingmongs in five 
miles. 

Midway on the mountainside was a large 
boulder perhaps twenty feet in height. As 
it was immediately in his path Eiseeyou 
clambered carelessly around it. He did not 
expect to meet any game either large or 
small so was not taking his usual precau¬ 
tions. As he rounded the boulder on the 
upper side his black hair fairly stood up and 
his usually steady nerves began quivering 


53 


Eiseeyou Meets the Czar 

strangely as he encountered a mighty polar 
bear who was standing on his hindlegs, his 
fore paws resting upon the body of a dead 
musk ox. The bear, much incensed that his 
meal had been so unceremoniously inter- 
rupted, greeted Eiseeyou with an angry 
snarl. 

It would have been the better part of 
valor on Eiseeyou ’s part to have retreated a 
little before opening fire on the monster. 
Then if his shots were not effective, he 
might at least get in some more or run for it. 
But Eiseeyou was so paralyzed with fright 
that his usually keen wits forsook him. 

He obeyed the hunter’s first instinct and 
that was to shoot. 

Quick as a flash he raised his rifle to his 
shoulder and fired. 

But his hands were cold, and his gloves 
were bungling, and the bullet which had 
been intended for the great bear’s brain 
glanced off his skull merely stunning him 
for an instant. Seeing that his first shot 
had not killed the monster, Eiseeyou fired 
again—this time at the heart and broke a 
shoulder instead. 


54 


The White Czar 


By this time Bruin probably thought it 
was his turn, and with a blow quicker than 
lightning he struck the rifle from Eiseeyou’s 
hand with his still undisabled arm and at the 
same time caught the intrepid hunter to his 
shaggy breast. 

Eiseeyou had just presence of mind 
enough left as the bear seized him to draw 
his hunting knife and sink it deep into the 
bear’s sides. Luckily for him it found the 
heart. 

But one of these mighty bears will put 
forth great exertions even after being shot 
through the heart. 

Tighter and tighter the mighty arm 
gripped him while Eiseeyou struggled with 
all his might to free himself. If the bear 
had possessed both arms, he could have 
crushed the hunter in a very few seconds. 

But even as it was Eiseeyou felt his ribs 
cracking. His eyes fairly bulged from his 
head. His breath was entirely squeezed 
out of him and with a snap like the report 
of a pistol, his right arm with which he was 
holding his own body away from that of the 
bear snapped. 


55 


Eiseeyou Meets the Czar 

Finally it grew dark about Eiseeyou. 
He had a queer faint feeling and his ears 
rang strangely. 

But just as he reached the point of his 
last ounce of resistance the strength of the 
Czar gave out and they collapsed together 
and rolled on the snow beside the dead musk 
ox. 

Five minutes later Eiseeyou raised him¬ 
self painfully on his elbow and looked about 
him. He had fainted with the pain from 
his broken arm, but the bear was motionless 
and apparently dead. Eiseeyou reached 
over cautiously and touched his nose. It 
was already growing cold. 

Yes, he had won the fight, but at a terrible 
price. One of his ribs was broken and he 
was so sore that he could scarcely draw a 
long breath. His right arm was broken. 
It was thirty below zero and night was com¬ 
ing on in a few hours. He was so weak he 
could not stand and his companions and the 
three komatiks were hourly going further 
from him. They would not expect him to 
overtake them until towards night. Then 
it would be too late for them to turn back 


56 


The White Czar 


and look for him. Besides, they could not 
find him in a day’s search unless they should 
be very successful in tracking him. In the 
meantime he must keep from freezing. 

Eiseeyou’s plight looked desperate, but 
he was not discouraged. 

A white man under those circumstances 
would have frozen, but not so the hardy 
Eskimo. For several minutes he sat upon 
the body of the dead bear w T hose white coat 
had cost him such a price. Then a grin 
overspread his pleasant countenance. No, 
he was not beaten. 

He would win out yet, and what a hero he 
would be in Eskimo Town! 

First he fortified himself against the cold 
of the coming night by eating as much raw 
Omingmong as he could hold. Then he ate 
some snow to slake his thirst. So far so 
good, but how would he protect himself 
against the cold arctic night ? 

He got down on his knees and carefully 
examined the ground on which the white 
bear lay. Then he began digging the snow 
away from under him on the lee side with 
his hunting knife. 


57 


Eiseeyou Meets the Czar 

In half an hour he had excavated a hole 
large enough to admit his body. Then he 
crawled in, and with the same trusty knife 
scraped the snow over him, first pulling the 
long white pelage of the bear about him. 
Finally the friendly wind blew the snow 
over the place, entirely covering him and 
soon he was fairly warm. His broken arm 
pained him so he could not sleep soundly 
but he dozed the arctic night away in safety 
where his white brother would have died 
merely from the cold. 


CHAPTER IV 


RETURN" OF THE HUNTING PARTY 

Tunkine and Tukshu were not much 
worried about the absence of Eiseeyou until 
several hours after the vanishing of the 
arctic day. But when the hours dragged 
by until ten of them had passed and still 
he did not overtake them, they became 
anxious. 

In the meantime they had camped and 
built a snow igloo and had made the three 
heavily loaded komatiks and the dog teams 
secure. It would be almost hopeless to re¬ 
turn and try to find Eiseeyou in the dark¬ 
ness of the arctic night, although these 
Eskimos have a sort of cat eyesight and can 
see to hunt and kill game in the darkness 
where a white man cannot even find his way. 

So after having fed the dog teams and 
eaten large quantities of frozen meat them¬ 
selves, the two Eskimos crawled into their 

58 


Return of the Hunting Party 59 

sleeping bags and were soon asleep notwith¬ 
standing the fact that their companion was 
absent. They had no means of knowing 
what had befallen him. He might even be 
dead. 

But the Eskimos are fatalists. If they 
had been questioned about their seeming in¬ 
difference they would have replied, “If he 
is dead, he is dead. We cannot help it. If 
God wants him to die, we can’t stop it.” 

But very promptly with the first faint 
indication of the return of the arctic day, 
Tunkine set off on the back track to find 
their companion, while Tukshu remained to 
guard the three komatiks and the dog teams. 

Tunkine had no difficulty in finding the 

» \ 

tracks where Eiseeyou had started towards 
the coast on his explorations. 

The wind had blown but slightly the night 
before, but even so the tracks were blown in 
in places and he had to follow partly by in¬ 
stinct, picking up the trail for a few hun¬ 
dred feet and then losing it. At last, after 
about three hours, he came to the precipi¬ 
tate mountain that Eiseeyou had climbed 
the day before. Here the trail was very 


60 


The White Czar 


plain as it had been made in a rather icy 
crust and the wind had kept it clear. So 
Tunkine followed without difficulty to the 
great boulder where Eiseeyou had met with 
his desperate adventure. If Eiseeyou had 
been astonished by meeting the Czar over 
the body of the dead musk ox, Tunkine was 
equally astonished to find both the dead 
Omingmong and the great white bear lying 
beside it. His astonishment gave way to a 
sickening fear when he discovered the 
tracks of Eiseeyou’s deerskin boots beside 
the carcass of the bear. The great hunter 
had certainly been there, and yet he was 
nowhere to be seen. Had the huge bear 
killed and eaten him ? 

With much excitement, Tunkine exam¬ 
ined the snow about. Yes, there were signs 
of a desperate struggle. Then his foot 
struck something hard and, kicking away 
the snow, he stooped and picked up Eisee¬ 
you ’s rifle which he had neglected to take 
with him when he crawled under the bear. 

While Tunkine was still standing pon¬ 
dering, with a great fear at his heart, the 


’Return of the Hunting Party 81 

snow under the bear began wriggling about 
strangely. 

The Eskimo is rather superstitious and 
for a moment Tunkine nearly yielded to 
the impulse to flee. Perhaps this mountain 
was bewitched. But before he could flee, a 
hand was thrust through the snow. In it 
was a large hunting knife which Tunkine 
had no difficulty in recognizing. 

With a glad cry he fell upon his knees and 
began digging frantically to free his friend. 
After a very few minutes’ work Eiseeyou 
staggered to his feet, stiff, pale, and weak. 
His right arm hung limp by his side, but 
that would mend in time and he was still the 
intrepid hunter with many a good fight 
against the wind and the cold left in him. 

Briefly he told the story of his meeting 
with the White Czar. 

The Eskimos decided that they could not 
take anything but the bear’s great white 
coat with them. So Tunkine at once set to 
work divesting him of it. Eiseeyou helped 
what he could with his left hand. 

In an incredibly short time, the white robe 


62 


The White Czar 


was stripped from the dead bear and rolled 
up ready for the march back to the waiting 
komatiks. Although by this time the arctic 
night was again upon them, yet they set off 
to find the camp where Tukshu waited 
patiently for them. 

About midnight the faithful Tukshu was 
awakened by a great commotion among the 
dogs and, crawling hastily from the snow 
igloo, rifle in hand, he found Tunkine and 
Eiseeyou in the midst of the yelping pack. 

Truly it was a happy meeting of these 
three hardy hunters. 

Men who without the civilized ways of 
thinking and with little religion, under¬ 
go cheerfully every week of the year des¬ 
perate hardships and dangers, all for the 
love of those in the igloo in Eskimo Town. 

The following night at about the same 
hour that the two hunters returned to camp, 
the three sleepers were aroused by a strange 
noise from the dog teams. Most of the 
arctic noises they knew at once, but this 
sound puzzled them for a few minutes. The 
dog teams seemed to have gone loony, for 
they were howling intermittently, not in the 


Return of the Hunting Party 63 

usual hoarse howl of an Eskimo dog, but in 
a thin unearthly howl which had a strange 
bloodcurdling sound. They did not all 
howl at once, but first one would howl and 
then another. 

The three hunters listened in perfect 
silence until, during a lull in the howling of 
the dogs, they distinctly heard another howl. 
This too was thin and bloodcurdling, sound¬ 
ing more like the shrieking of the wind than 
like a cry from the throat of an animal. 

At this sound the three Eskimos reached 
for their rifles and crawled cautiously out 
into the open. The sound that they had just 
heard was the howl of the great white arctic 
wolf. These dread hunters were abroad and 
probably trying to lure away some of the 
dogs that they might devour them. 

The dogs seemed to recognize in the white 
wolves their own kin of a few generations 
back and the weird howling drew them 
strangely. For several minutes all was 
quiet and then the distant howling was re¬ 
peated as before and the dogs answered. 
The Eskimos soon silenced them with their 
whips. 


64 


The White Czar 


After a quarter of an hour Tunkine, 
whose night eyes were better than those of 
his companions, pointed out two gleaming 
yellow eyes watching them from behind a 
clump of creeping willow. 

The three raised their rifles and fired in 
unison, and a white wolf sprang into the air 
and fell kicking on the snow, while in the 
distance the sound of scurrying feet could 
be distinctly heard. This ended their 
troubles from the white pack, although 
Tukshu remained up watching for the rest 
of the night. 

Meanwhile life went on its humdrum way 
in Eskimo Town. 

The men went on short seal hunts while 
the women busied themselves with making 
reindeer-skin boots. There were the traps 
also to mind. These often yielded valuable 
fox skins which the women attended to 
stretching and curing. They also boiled 
the fox meat over their strange stone lamps, 
thus giving variety to their usual diet of raw 
meat. 

But after about ten days, the old men and 


Return of the Hunting Party 65 

the women and also the children would be 
seen often watching from the top of the high 
hill for some signs of the returning hunting 
party. 

If they were anxious, yet they gave no 
sign. The allotted time had already been 
consumed and their return was confidently 
looked for. 

On the eleventh day after the hunting 
party had disappeared over the frozen bar¬ 
rens, just as the arctic dusk was about to 
descend, one of the watchers at the top of 
the hill described three small specks away 
on the distant horizon. They were so small 
that they had no seeming shape, but to the 
trained eyes of the Eskimo they had both 
shape and meaning. Without waiting fur¬ 
ther than to satisfy himself, he ran wildly 
through Eskimo Town shouting at the en¬ 
trance of each igloo and hailing every one 
that he met joyously. 

In less time almost than it takes to tell, 
half the inhabitants of Eskimo Town were 
watching at the top of the hill. The winds 
were blowing briskly and the thermometer 


66 


The White Czar 


was probably thirty below zero, but they did 
not mind. Their loved ones were coming 
home. 

The hunters were returning. Fresh 
omingmong meat was coming on those 
slowly crawling sledges. 

No one in the excited crowd was more ex¬ 
cited than was Eiseeyou’s kooner. This 
hunting party had been a great strain on 
her. For eleven long days she had waited, 
almost alone in the igloo with little Oumauk 
and his sister, also with the thought that be¬ 
fore Eiseeyou should return there might be 
another snow baby in his igloo. 

Finally the komatiks came into plain 
sight and there was no mistaking what the 
eyes of the old man had seen half an hour 
before. This was more than Eiseeyou’s 
kooner could bear. 

Without the slightest warning she went 
problokto. This is a sudden madness which 
often seizes the Eskimos. The women are 
especially liable to this strange derange¬ 
ment. The young woman shrieked and tore 
at her hair. Finally she rolled in the snow 


Return of the Hunting Party 67 

and tried to tear off her garments, although 
the air was biting cold. 

A frightened little group gathered around 
her, yet could do nothing. But when she 
finally sprang to her feet and ran away into 
the gathering darkness, two strong men fol¬ 
lowed and brought her hack by force. 

This derangement probably arises from 
the fact that the Eskimos dwell in this 
strange desolate land, under unearthly con¬ 
ditions. Their lives are hard and have not 
much joy in them. It is a constant struggle 
to keep the wolf of hunger from the igloo, 
so they sometimes go mad. The great 
silence, the ghastly moonlight, and the long 
night probably all add to this tendency. 

Thus it happened that when poor Eisee- 
you, nearly spent with the trip, finally strug¬ 
gled to the top of the hill, with his right arm 
in a sling, the first object that met his eyes 
was the sight of two men carrying his 
kooner to the igloo. 

Notwithstanding his own discomfort, he 
was all compassion and tenderness. Once 
in the igloo where other women ministered 


68 


The White Czar 


to her, the dusky little woman whose life was 
one long struggle against the cold and hun¬ 
ger revived and was soon herself, resting her 
head on the well arm of her mighty hunter. 

But it was many a day before the women 
and children and the old men tired of talk¬ 
ing of these latest achievements of Eiseeyou, 
the bravest of the brave among the children 
of the snow. 


CHAPTEB Y 


I-WOK, THE MIGHTY 

Probably the most diabolical monster 
that travels upon sea or land in the western 
hemisphere, is the walrus, called by the 
Eskimo, I-wok. He lives upon the icefloe, 
so he travels northward in the summer and 
southward in the winter, following the 
movements of the arctic ice. 

He is found along the northeast coast of 
British America including Labrador and 
Greenland, along the shores of Behring sea, 
and in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska in 
the summertime. There are two species, 
the Pacific and the Atlantic walrus. The 
only difference being that the Atlantic wal¬ 
rus possesses a slimmer neck; aside from 
that they are identical. 

Imagine, if you can, a mighty creature 
weighing two thousand pounds covered with 
a coarse, heavy, seamed and watted skin, of 
a dirty yellowish brown, a skin so thick that 


70 


The White Czar 


it often weighs two hundred pounds when 
removed. To the Eskimo, who has as good 
teeth as a husky dog, this skin is considered 
a great delicacy, but a white man would as 
soon eat saddle leather. 

Imagine this monster with a massive 
head, like the sea lion, only much larger, a 
head surmounted by two large tusks two 
feet in length. A head so large that it 
would be as high as a man *s head if he were 
standing beside this satyr. Such a head 
supported upon a neck of ten feet girth. 
Imagine this monstrosity equipped with 
huge flippers about two feet in length in¬ 
stead of legs and a ridiculous tail which 
scarcely shows. 

If you can imagine all this, you have in 
your mind a good picture of I-wok, the 
mighty, the animal who furnishes more food 
and raw material to the Eskimo than does 
any other creature. 

Another animal that also follows the ice¬ 
floe and is almost as much of a favorite with 
the Eskimo is Nik-Suk, the seal, the most 
common species being the little ringed seal, 
which is found adjacent to the whole of 



71 


I-Wokj the Mighty 

Eskimo Land. In fact it is the presence of 
these two animals that makes Eskimo Land 
inhabitable. 

There are several species of seals. The 
common harbor seal which is seen in many 
of the Atlantic harbors is a type of all the 
rest. He has a cousin called the harp seal, 
with stripes upon his coat resembling the 
strings of the harp. The ribbon seal has a 
beautiful and even ribbon around his neck 
and another along his sides and shoulders 
which meet underside. The strangest of 
all the seals is the hooded seal. The male 
of this species has a grotesque skin hood up¬ 
on the top of his head which he can puff out 
at will. 

Both the walrus and the seal breed and 
feed upon the ice floe. 

But they are not the only inhabitants of 
that strange movable world; for the white 
Czar, the great polar bear, also follows the 
floe, that he may prey upon the young seals 
and the walrus calves. A dead whale is also 
to his liking. Some of the foxes, too, fre¬ 
quent the floe in certain times of the year. 

The day following the return of the hunt- 



72 


The White Czar 


ing party to Eskimo Town, Tunkine took 
his friend Eiseeyou to a larger Eskimo 
Town farther south where the local mis¬ 
sionary, who was also a sort of doctor, put 
his arm in splints and he recovered very 
rapidly. In less than a month’s time he 
had taken off the splints and declared that 
he was ready for another polar bear. 

By this time the sun had returned so far 
northward that it shone feebly for several 
hours each day. This was keenly enjoyed 
by the Snow People, who appreciate the sun 
as no other people in the world do. The ice¬ 
floe had started southward and the walrus 
and seal hunting were good, even within a 
day’s journey from Eskimo Town. 

The three hunters, tired of the unexciting 
work of attending the traps and shooting 
ptarmigan, were glad that the hunting of 
larger game was at hand. So they planned 
a hunt of I-wok, that should be long remem¬ 
bered in Eskimo Town. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE CZARINA 

How it happened that the same morning 
the three hunters set forth from Eskimo 
town to hunt I-wok, the mighty, another 
hunter had started upon the same quest. 

The day following that in which Tunkine 
found his friend Eiseeyou lying wounded 
under the carcass of the great polar bear, 
another white bear, perhaps not quite as 
large as the Czar, appeared at the foot of 
the mountain. This was the Czarina, the 
mate of the White Czar who had been called 
from hibernation in some strange way by 
her mate’s death. She easily found the trail 
of her comrade leading up the mountainside 
and finally followed it to the place where 
the dead bear lay. Although he was di¬ 
vested of his white coat, yet she had no 
difficulty in recognizing him. 

First she spent a day and a night in 

73 


74 


The White Czar 


seeming deep grief, lying in the snow by his 
side. Then she yielded to the urge of hun¬ 
ger, and, sad to relate, made a good meal up¬ 
on him. Having satisfied the gnawing at 
her vitals, she turned back towards the sea¬ 
shore where the white bears had been spend¬ 
ing the last two months. 

But hunting was poor in the land of 
Omingmong. The seals and walrus were 
all further south, where they were slowly 
following the first movements of the ice 
northward. So, as the hunting was poor 
and she was restless, being heavy with 
young, the Czarina started southward fol¬ 
lowing upon the ice almost parallel wfith the 
three heavily loaded komatiks, upon one of 
which was the white coat of her mate. She 
did not go as far southward as they did, 
however, but stopped about ten miles north 
of Eskimo Town, and took up her abode in a 
cave in the side of a cliff which fringed the 
sea. Here she gave birth to two white cubs, 
blind and almost hairless. 

Ordinarily while she was nursing the 
small bears, her mate would have hunted for 
her, but he was dead; so the responsibility 


The Czarina 


75 


for her own food and the sustenance of the 
two cubs fell upon the mother bear. Thus 
it happened that this white hunter came 
forth to hunt along the icefloe on the same 

morning that the Eskimo party started 
out. 

But she was up much earlier than they. 
For two hours before the tardy arctic sun 
finally appeared, she had been lying upon 
the ice, partly shielded by an upturned cake, 
watching a pair of walrus which were 
disporting themselves in the open water 
nearby. 

She would have much preferred hunting 
seal, as walrus hunting is dangerous sport. 

Just across from where she lay a point of 
land jutted far out into the open water, and 
the cow and the bull walrus finally climbed 
upon some rocks to sun. The sun’s rays 
were still very feeble, but this was better 
than nothing. 

After watching them closely for a long 
time, the white bear saw another cow walrus 
climb upon a rock nearby. Her calf stayed 
in the water disporting himself and occa¬ 
sionally popping up his round head, which 


76 


The White Czar 


was not shaped like anything in particular. 
The calf himself was a fat rotund bundle of 
flesh, weighing perhaps a hundred pounds. 
Anyhow he looked good to the hungry 
mother hear as she lay on the ice watching. 

Finally she decided that the bull was a- 
sleep. The cow also seemed to be dozing. 
This was her chance, so she silently slipped 
into the water and swam slowly towards 
them, keeping just the tip of her nose in 
sight. 

In this manner she proceeded until she 
was within a hundred feet of them. Then 
she inflated her great lungs and silently 
sank from sight. It was to be a sort of sub¬ 
marine attack. 

For an instant, twenty-five feet nearer, 
the white nose again appeared. Then all 
was still about the walrus family. 

In the meantime, the calf had decided it 
was time to feed and was at the water’s edge 
calling for the cow to come down to him. 

The walrus calf suckles under water, 
just as the young hippopotamus does. It 
was not until a hippopotamus in captivity 
gave birth to a youngster, that this fact was 


The Czarina 


77 


known. Then the care takers in the circus 
killed the calf by trying to make it suckle 
above water. 

Although the walrus mother is a great fat 
mountain without shape or beauty, yet her 
love for her calf is very beautiful. She 
guards and mothers it as faithfully as the 
most fastidious heifer. So she slipped 
down into the water and the calf began feed¬ 
ing. This was not just as the white hunter 
had planned, but she was almost upon them 
and could not turn back. 

Presently, as the calf came to the surface 
to breathe, it uttered a plaintive bleat and 
struggling sank from sight. 

With an agonized cry the mother walrus 
turned just in time to see the white coat of 
the dread hunter sink in the dark water 
carrying the struggling calf with it. 

Her cry of distress and appeal was like a 
call to battle to the sleeping bull. It is an 
unwritten law in the chivalric code of the 
male walrus that he defend his mate and 
his young with his life. So, with a roar of 
rage that echoed along the frozen ice field, 
the bull splashed into the water. 


78 


The White Czar 


But the great walrus fought at a disad¬ 
vantage, for the white hunter came up to 
breathe only when it was necessary. 

They would charge at her as soon as the 
white head appeared above the water, but 
immediately she sank from sight. 

But the walrus calf was a bulky weight 
to carry and it had a tendency to rise to the 
surface. The bear several times narrowly 
missed being struck by the mighty swim¬ 
mers as they charged at her. They churned 
up the water until it was covered with foam 
and the small cakes of floating ice danced 
like corks. But all the time the cunning 
bear was working her way to the solid ice. 
Finally, when she had become nearly 
winded, she climbed out on the solid ice, 
just as the enraged bull came bellowing to 
its edge. 

Once on the firm ice, she struck the help¬ 
less calf a crushing blow on its head and it 
lay still. 

It would have been a simple matter to 
have trotted back to the cave with the calf 
had not the unexpected happened. 

Just as the mother bear had taken a good 


The Czarina 


79 


hold on the calf and started on the home¬ 
ward journey, the three komatiks from 
Eskimo Town came upon the ice. The 
hunters at once spied the great white bear, 
and the walrus hunt was immediately 
changed into a bear hunt. They cut the 
traces and let the dogs loose, and in five 
minutes the yelping pack had overtaken the 
white hunter. 

But she did not abandon the calf which 
had cost her so much trouble without a 
struggle. She laid it on the ice and waited 
for the pack. The first dog that ventured 
too near was sent to the happy hunting 
ground with a single blow. 

This cooled the ardor of the pack and the 
Eskimos could only get them to follow at a 
distance. As the men themselves had only 
their harpoons with them, they could not 
come to very close grips with the bear. So 
a running fight was kept up for two miles. 
Finally the bear decided to abandon her kill 
and leave the calf behind on the ice. After 
that, she loped away to the north with such 
a long stride that she soon left the hunters 
behind. But this was not until they had 


80 The White Czar 

noted that she was a female bear, probably 
with young. 

The three hunters held a counsel of war 
and finally decided to return to the walrus 
hunt and go after the white bear another 
day. She never would be hunting in these 
waters, they reasoned, unless she was stay¬ 
ing in the region permanently. So, al¬ 
though they finally let her go, yet they 
felt sure they would find her again some 
other day when they should have their high 
power rifles along. 

When the three hunters returned to the 
water’s edge where the Czarina had clam¬ 
bered out with the walrus calf ten minutes 
before, they found the old walrus bull still 
splashing up and down in the water looking 
for the white destroyer. He was so en¬ 
raged and so bent on venting his fury on the 
slayer of his offspring that he was not as 
wary as usual; so they had a good chance to 
steal upon him. Eiseeyou went first, creep¬ 
ing along on his belly. In his right hand 
he carried a harpoon to which was attached 
a long rawhide rope. 

Usually when the Eskimo harpoons a 


The Czarina 


81 


walrus lie pulls out the handle of the har¬ 
poon and leaves the walrus free to swim 
away with the head sticking in him. This 
is because the head is attached to a cord, and 
that in turn is attached to a float. When 
the walrus has dragged the float about on 
the water until he is tired, the Eskimo will 
creep up on him in a kayak, one of their 
small skin boats, and shoot him or spear 
him to death. But today they planned to 
hold the walrus fast as soon as they had har¬ 
pooned him. 

Tunkine followed fifty feet behind Eisee- 
you, with the end of the rope, and a sharp 
spear, to which it was attached. 

Finally when Eiseeyou reached the edge 
of the ice, he signed to Tunkine that he was 
ready and to look out. Then he raised him¬ 
self cautiously on one elbow. Just at that 
moment the bull reared his head high above 
the water and Eiseeyou flung his harpoon 
like lightning. 

It sank deep in the bull’s neck and he at 
once whirled and started for the open sea. 
But Tunkine was ready for him. At the 
moment Eiseeyou had flung the harpoon, he 


82 


The White Czar 


had driven the sharp pointed spear to which 
the rope was fastened, deep into the ice. 

Eiseeyou sprang to his assistance and 
together they held the upper end of the 
spear. The rawhide tightened until one 
would have thought it would snap. But it 
is very tough, much stronger than rope of 
an equal size. For a few seconds the bull 
strained at it with all his might, while the 
two Eskimos held their breath with sus¬ 
pense, but the rope and the spear held. 
Then the infuriated bull came splashing and 
bellowing back to the edge of the ice. The 
water was dyed crimson with his blood. 

He lashed it into white foam. Back 
and forth he raced, first trying to get at his 
captors and then trying vainly to break 
away. 

But the rope was like a deadly thing, 
slowly but surely reeling him in. The two 
Eskimos wound the rope up gradually about 
the spear, until they had the bull held fast 
close to the ice. 

By this time he was too tired out and ex¬ 
hausted from loss of blood to struggle. 
So while Tunkine held the rope, Eiseeyou 


The Czarina 


83 


crept up carefully and delivered Several 
deadly thrusts with another harpoon. 
Finally the mighty monster of the Arctic 
ceased his struggling and the Eskimos knew 
he was dead. 

Then they rigged a double pulley of their 
own make, which they had brought along on 
one of the komatiks and slowly walked the 
great two thousand pound walrus on to the 
ice. 

They then set to work with their sharp 
knives to skin him and to cut him up. In 
an incredibly short time the great bull was 
skinned, cut up, and loaded upon the three 
sledges, and the successful hunters set off 
for Eskimo Town. They had not only 
killed the walrus and there would be plenty 
of meat for all, but they had also discovered 
the white bear, and that promised another 
exciting hunt for another day. So they 
were well content. 

j 



CHAPTER VII 


WHITIE 

For several days after the walrus hunt 
described in the last chapter, very bad 
weather prevailed in Eskimo Land. The 
mighty north winds, with an edge that cut 
like a knife, smote the half buried igloos 
with a demon’s strength. The snow blew 
in white clouds until one could see scarcelv 
a rod in any direction, and the cold was in¬ 
tense. So the three mighty hunters con¬ 
tented themselves by staying in their warm 
igloos and listening to the tales of the old 
men, some of them stories of famous bear 
hunts. They were not quite sure whether 
these old wrinkled hunters had really seen 
all the white bears they said they had, or 
whether they simply drew upon their imag¬ 
inations; but their stories were pleasant to 
listen to when the winds howled outside and 
swept across the frozen plains and the ice 
floe. But like all bad things stormy 

84 


JVhitie 


8 5 


weather finally gave way to days of sun- 

shine, and the, three hunters planned their 
hear hunt. 

On the morning in question, they set forth 
just as they had for the walrus hunt, with 
three komatiks and a supply of food. 

But this time they were armed differ¬ 
ently. Most of their harpoons they left be¬ 
hind, and instead they carried their high 
power rifles. In rare cases the white bear 
can be driven into the open water and har¬ 
pooned from a kayak, but this is not the 
usual mode of hunting him. 

The travelling on the ice floe was rather 
rough. Often they would come to a mighty 
berg which had been ended up and had 
frozen into the floe in that position; then 
they would have to go around it. 

They had travelled perhaps five miles 
northward along the floe, when the dog team 
of Eiseeyou set up a yelping and rushed for¬ 
ward. They came almost immediately to 
an open hole in the ice between a couple of 
cakes. The hole showed evidence of arti¬ 
ficial thawing about the edge. 

Eiseeyou got off his komatik and after 


86 


The White Czar 


examining the hole carefully, motioned to 
his comrades on the other komatiks to come 
forward. They also examined the hole with 
care. Then all three looked wise, and said 
in one breath, “Nik-suk.” 

It was a breathing hole of Nik-suk the 
seal that they had discovered; so like chil¬ 
dren that they were, they for the time being 
forgot all about the White Czar and were all 
excitement about Nik-suk. 

If there is one animal in the north coun¬ 
try that the Eskimo knows better than any 
other it is Nik-Suk, for he is the most val¬ 
uable of all the arctic animals to the Eskimo. 
The three hunters now knew that every 
twenty minutes, as regularly as the clock 
could have told it, the seal would come to 
this hole to breathe, provided he had no 
other breathing hole. So the three kom¬ 
atiks were withdrawn for a distance from 
the breathing hole, and Tucksu was given 
the task of tending the dog teams, while 
Eiseeyou and Tunkine made ready for the 
seal. 

Eiseeyou lay down on the ice about fifteen 
feet from the breathing hole, resting partly 


Whitie 


87 

on his left elbow so that he could watch the 
hole, while in his right hand he held a trusty 
harpoon. His companion Tunkine lay upon 
the ice farther away, with the raw-hide cord 
attached to the harpoon firmly wound 
around his waist. They might have been 
blocks of ice themselves, so still they lay. 
Five minutes passed, ten, and fifteen, and 
still the seal did not come to the surface to 
breathe. Perhaps it was an old hole, but 
they would wait a while longer. Patience is 
a quality that the Eskimo has learned to 
perfection, just as have all primitive 
people. Finally, when Eiseeyou had about 
concluded that it must be an old hole, in 
spite of the excitement of the dogs, the beau¬ 
tiful head with the very human eyes of the 
little-ringed seal popped up in the air hole 
to breathe. 

Lightning was not quicker than the flash 
of Eiseeyou’s strong right arm as he sank 
the harpoon deep in the seal’s neck. Then 
both Eskimos sprang to their feet and 
braced themselves. Away went the raw- 
hide line singing through their mittened 
hands, and whistling against the edge of 


88 


The White Czar 


the ice. At last it came taut with a mighty 
jerk. Both men braced themselves. The 
rope cut into Tunkine’s waist until he 
thought it would cut him in two, but it held 
and the seal came racing back, but was soon 
off in another direction. 

Again the rope tightened, and the two 
hunters strained with all their strength. 
Again and again this happened, but each 
time they braced and the rope held. Five, 
ten, fifteen minutes went by. The fight was 
nearly over. Poor nik-suk must soon come 
to his airhole to breathe again. Then they 
would finish him. 

So Eiseeyou gradually drew him in while 
Tunkine waited with the spear. Finally 
the beautiful head again appeared. This 
time Tunkine finished poor nik-suk with his 
spear and together they hauled him out on 
to the ice. 

They loaded the seal, which was of the 
little-ringed species, on to one of the ko- 
matiks, and they went forward rapidly. 

They were reminded that they had wasted 
valuable time, for this was really a bear 
hunt, and not a seal hunt. 


Whitie 


89 


So for hours the three dog teams ranged 
back and forth over the ice floe. Some of 
the way the going was smooth, but often 
they had to turn this way and that to avoid 
small bergs which had been frozen into the 
floe. There were many fox tracks on the 
ice, but no signs of Bruin. Finally, when 
they had travelled about ten miles to the 
Northward, and had traversed the ice field in 
every direction and were becoming discour¬ 
aged, they came upon the fresh trail of the 
great bear. Every few feet there were 
blood-spots, which indicated that she had 
been successful in her hunting. The Czar¬ 
ina had probably found a seal pup, or per¬ 
haps a walrus calf. 

The dogs, all eagerness, yelped to be off; 
but Eiseeyou did not think it wise to cut 
them loose until they located the bear. 

At last they came in sight of the mighty 
hunter making for the shore, and Eiseeyou 
gave word to cut loose the dogs. 

The pack at once set off at a wild pace 
yelping with excitement. But when they 
came near enough to see who the quarry 
was, they experienced a sudden chill of their 


90 


The White Czar 


ardor. The White Czarina merely turned 
to snarl angrily at them, and then fled to¬ 
wards the land. She was too far away for 
the hunters to risk a shot, which might 
merely anger her; but they followed as fast 
as possible. Finally the trail led up a steep 
bank, ending at the mouth of a natural cave. 
So the three hunters and the dozen dogs 
finally came up, and all gathered about the 
entrance. 

It was very dark and forbidding inside. 
It looked specially so as they had plainly 
seen the great bear enter. Eiseeyou tried 
to get the dogs to go in and rout out the 
bear but they slunk back, the hair standing 
erect on their backs. The taste that they 
had had of the white fury the week before 
had satisfied them. 

The hunters fired several shots into the 
cave, but with no apparent effect. They 
had certainly found the temporary den of 
the great bear but this did not help them 
much. Night was coming on; so they 
seemed balked in their hunting for that day. 

Eiseeyou then proposed to Tunkine that 
he go in and stir up the bear, but the latter 



Whitie 


91 


said he had too many children to risk it. 
Tuckshu said that he hadn’t lost any bear 
and that his hide was worth more to him 
than several bearskins. There seemed noth¬ 
ing to do but to camp there for the night 
or return home. If they went back to Es¬ 
kimo Town, the prize might escape. She 
might escape in the night, even if they 
watched. 

Finally Eiseeyou, in a fit of daring for 
which he was celebrated, said he would go 
in. His friends tried to dissuade him, but 
his mind was made up. He posted his com¬ 
panions in readiness to shoot if he should 
be driven out and, rifle in hand, began crawl¬ 
ing slowly into the dark cave. 

At first he could see little, but finally he 
got his night eyes and could see that the 
cave led back underground for several rods. 
Just ahead of him was a narrow place which 
he did not like the looks of. 

If Eiseeyou could have known that the 
great bear was standing behind one of the 
pillars of rock, waiting with upraised paw 
for him, he would have been even more 
fearful. 


92 


The White Czar 


At the narrow place Eiseeyou stopped 
and listened for several minutes, but all was 
as still as death. Then he stuck the barrel 
of his rifle through and felt about on either 
side. 

This precaution probably saved his life. 
With a blow like lightning, the great bear 
struck the rifle from his hand and sent it 
crashing on the floor of the cave, breaking 
the stock. Then with a roar that made Ei¬ 
seeyou’s two companions outside grip their 
rifles fearfully, she sprang through the nar¬ 
row space and reached for the venturesome 
Eskimo. 

But Eiseeyou was not taken wholly una¬ 
wares. He had been looking for trouble all 
the way, and now he had found it. So 
stooping down in order not to hit his head, 
he ran for the streak of light which he knew 
was the opening of the cave. 

It seemed to him that he would never 
reach it. He could hear the mighty bear al¬ 
most upon him. He even fancied that she 
struck at him occasionally with her great 
paw as she pursued. Finally he burst into 





W hitie 93 

the daylight with the Czarina an arm’s 
length behind. 

Eiseeyou had just presence of mind 
enough left to spring to one side and give 
his companions a chance to shoot. But as 
he sprang, his foot caught in a crevice and 
he went full length on the ground. At the 
same instant two shots rang out from his 
companions’ rifles. 

The great bear turned upon them with a 
thunderous snarl, but fortunately for Ei¬ 
seeyou, they stood their ground and gave 
her two more bullets, one in the head and 
the other near the heart. 

She struck out at them savagely, then 
reeled and fell upon the ground almost over 
the prostrate Eiseeyou. 

That mighty hunter extricated his foot 
from the crevice with all alacrity and got 
to a safe distance as the white Czarina 
struggled. Two more shots finished her, 
and the second white bear robe was assured 
for Eskimo Town. 

After making sure that the great bear 
was dead, the three hunters lighted some 


94 


The White Czar 


torches which they had not thought of be¬ 
fore and explored the cave. They felt 
quite sure that the mate of this bear was 
the one that Eiseeyou had killed on the 
musk-ox hunt. 

What they found in the cave confirmed 
this view. The cave was not quite empty, 
but it was a safe place for three well-armed 
men. At the farther end of the cave they 
found the bear’s bed and a white cub lying 
dead in it, one of the stray bullets which 
they had fired before entering the cave hav¬ 
ing struck him. 

A bear family nearly always consists of 
two cubs. For several minutes they could 
not find the cub’s brother. But they finally 
heard a pitiful whimpering in a dark cor¬ 
ner of the cave and discovered him hiding 
there. He was trembling and whimpering 
and very fearful. 

So Eiseeyou went outside and brought in 
his sleeping bag and put the cub in it. That 
night he slept in the same bag with the 
mighty hunter, although it cramped him 
some. 

The following day they took him back to 


Whitie 


95 


Eskimo Town, where he became the friend 
and pet of all the children, and as much a 
part of the life of the village as any person 
in the community. Not only that, but he 
finally became famous all along the coast. 



CHAPTER VIII 


< 


WHITIE AND LITTLE OUMAUK 

It was a very jubilant bunting party that 
returned to Eskimo Town that night. The 
komatiks were loaded with five hundred 
pounds of bear meat, which makes a fine 
variation in the menu of the poor Eskimo. 
Besides that, the great, white robe of the 
Czarina was an important part of the kill; 
not to mention the fat Nik-Suk, who is al¬ 
ways welcomed with joy in the igloo. 

But the most astonishing thing that the 
three hunters brought was Whitie, the lit¬ 
tle polar bear. And the most excited per¬ 
son in all Eskimo Town was little Oumauk, 
who at once appropriated the small bear. 

Although it was well on in the evening 
when the hunting party returned, yet half 
of the people in the village flocked to Eisee- 
you’s igloo to see the small bear. But little 
Oumauk was very jealous of them all, and 
would hardly take his hands off the cub 

96 


The White Czar 


97 


long enough for the rest to admire it. 

The first question which at once arose 
was what and how to feed the cub. Meat 
was out of the question, and there was no 
milk in the village. The life of the cub 
might have ended then and there by slow 
starvation had not Eiseeyou remembered a 
case of evaporated milk which had been 
brought to the village the winter before, 
during an epidemic among the children. 
They had brought several cases, but only 
one was still unused. So Eiseeyou at once 
went to a deserted igloo where the milk had 
been cached and dug it out. A can was 
quickly opened, and some of the milk di¬ 
luted with water to what Eiseeyou thought 
would be the proper bear thickness. 

This was placed in a small pewter dish 
which the igloo boasted. 

Eiseeyou then took the small bear on his 
lap and by putting his nose partly in the 
milk, and also by putting the tip of his 
little finger in the bear’s mouth, the ingen¬ 
ious Eskimo had Whitie drinking in a very 
few minutes. 

When he had drunk all the milk that he 



98 


The White Czar 


would, little Oumauk claimed him. So he 
was wrapped in the lightest warmest fur 
that the igloo contained and placed on the 
sleeping bench beside little Oumauk, and 
the musk ox robe was covered over both of 
them. 

Eiseeyou cautioned his son to be careful 
not to roll on Whitie, and not to handle him 
too much until he should get stronger. 

Five minutes later when Eiseeyou’s 
kooner lifted up the edge of the robe to see 
them, both were sleeping soundly and the 
head of the child rested against that of the 
small bear. 

Eiseeyou was awakened very early the 
following morning by Oumauk, who wanted 
all the family to arouse themselves in order 
that they might attend to the cub. But Ei¬ 
seeyou, who was very tired, for once as¬ 
serted his parental authority and made Ou¬ 
mauk keep still while the rest slept. 

When they did at last arise, the cub was 
the first of the family to get his breakfast. 
And from that very day he became one of 
the family as well as a very important in¬ 
habitant of Eskimo Town. 


Whitie and Little Oumauk 99 

For the first few days Eiseeyou had to 
admonish frequently to keep his small son 
from loving the bear to death, for he hugged 
and squeezed him continually. Finally Ei¬ 
seeyou explained very tragically that if they 
did not let the cub sleep a lot just as sister 
did, he would die and they would have to 
bury him, just as they had Oumauk’s fa¬ 
vorite puppy the summer before. It had 
the desired effect and after this Oumauk 
was very careful. 

It was hard, though, when the winds 
howled outside, and the snows blew and all 
the children in the village had to stay in¬ 
side, for Oumauk to keep his hands off his 
small bear companion. 

On pleasant days, Oumauk would go forth 
having wrapped Whitie up in a warm fur, 
although really there was no need of that as 
the cub had a very warm fur of his own. 
But Oumauk would wrap him up nicely 
and then, putting him on his small komatik 
which his father had made for him, would 
go about the village exhibiting his pet to 
all the children. 

There was great rivalry among the boys 


100 


The White Czar 


to be allowed to help draw the komatik, but 
Ouinauk would suffer only his best friends 
to help. 

When Whitie grew steady on his legs, and 
larger and stronger, he was allowed to 
shuffle about for himself with the children. 
But Ouinauk never allowed him to get more 
than ten feet away, and he was quite jeal¬ 
ous of the other children who wanted to pet 
Whitie. 

When the spring finally came and the sun¬ 
beams were warm, great rejoicing filled Es¬ 
kimo Town. Although they bear the long 
dark winter stoically and do not grumble 
at their hard lot, yet it is probable that no 
people on earth so rejoice at the coming of 
Spring as do the Eskimos. 

The children swarmed forth from the 
igloos to romp with the puppies, which had 
also made their appearance with the com¬ 
ing of Spring. These puppies were legion 
in number and of all sizes and colors. 

But these little snow children loved them 
just as much as they would have the most 
pedigreed dogs. So the children, the pup- 



Whitie and Little Oumauk 101 

pies, and the small white hear all rioted and 
rejoiced in the glad Springtime. 

With the coming of Spring, the traps 
were all brought in and put away until 
another season. Walrus hunting and seal 
hunting was also temporarily given up; as 
the seals, the walrus, and the foxes would 
follow the ice floe northward. 

Perhaps next to the enjoyment of the 
warm sunshine and the coming of certain 
spring flowers, which abound in surprising 
profusion even in these north latitudes, the 
return of the birds was the most wonderful 
thing enjoyed in Eskimo Town. Of all the 
feathered friends that returned in the 
spring the Eskimo most joyously welcomed 
the little auk, which is to him the most use¬ 
ful of all the Arctic birds. It also rejoiced 
their hearts to see great flocks of eider 
ducks, and Brant’s geese go by. Full well 
they knew that when they had gone to their 
summer quarters in Eskimo Village they 
would find good eating from these great 
birds. But first of all the auk claimed their 
attention. 


102 


The White Czar 


These birds are about the size of the 
screech owl, or a little larger than the robin. 
They are gay of plumage and very pleasing 
to the eye when they come in large flocks. 
They are so tame that if one goes to the 
top of a high hill and sits down on the 
ground perfectly still, they will light upon 
one’s head and shoulders. They seem to 
be entirely fearless. 

So when the auk had come back in great 
numbers, Eiseeyou, Oumauk, and Whitie 
went to the top of a high hill near by Es¬ 
kimo Town to catch them in the nets. 

Whitie was almost as much interested as 
the rest. Little Oumauk was all eagerness, 
as helping with the net was a sort of initia¬ 
tion into becoming a great hunter. 

The net was something like a fish net. 
The two ends were secured on the tops of 
two tall poles about twelve feet apart. 

The net was held open slightly on the 
south side by a spreader. When the auk 
had once flown into the net, he either got en¬ 
tangled in its meshes, or did not seem to 
understand that he could fly out in the way 
he had come. So by setting up the net 


Whitie and Little Oumauh 103 

every few minutes and by taking it down 
and killing the entangled birds, the work 
of catching the poor auk went merrily 
on. 

It would have been cruel sport had not 
these bright skins been most useful to the 
Eskimo; but as it was, he was merely kill¬ 
ing the auk as a farmer would his chickens. 

He brought along a large gunny sack in 
which to carry back the catch. If he was 
lucky and the birds were flying freely, in an 
afternoon he would net from three to five 
hundred birds. 

When we remember that the skins of 
these birds are made into the Eskimos’ win¬ 
ter shirt, and also that the meat is very fine 
eating, even for a white man, the usefulness 
of the auk is at once appreciated. 

When Eiseeyou, and Oumauk and Whitie 
finally trudged back to Eskimo Town with 
their sack full of dead birds, Oumauk was 
the proudest boy in the village. 

There was one menace from which little 
Oumauk had a hard time defending his pet, 
and that was the wolfish sledge dogs. These 
savage canines are very little removed from 


104 


The White Czar 


wolves and are always quarreling and fight¬ 
ing among themselves. 

The first time they attacked Whitie, it 
might have gone hard with him had not his 
young master happened along at just the 
right time. 

Whitie was then only four or five months 
old and not large enough to defend himself. 
When Oumauk found him, he was backed 
up against a komatik, and several dogs were 
snapping at him. He was striking out with 
his cub paws and defending himself the best 
that he could but one of the dogs had al¬ 
ready gashed his face and the red blood was 
streaming down his white cheek. 

Little Oumauk was fairly wild with rage 
and, although he was but a small boy him¬ 
self, yet he went at the dogs like a whirl¬ 
wind. He snatched up a club and rushed 
into the fight with such ferocity that he sent 
the pack of mongrels yelping in every direc¬ 
tion. After that, he always kept a sharp 
watch on Whitie when he was outside. But 
as time passed and the cub grew, this danger 
lessened. 

Late in the summer, however, Oumauk 


Whitie and Little Oumauk 105 

discovered that his companion was growing 
rapidly and could defend himself. Again 
he came upon the dogs who had cornered 
his pet and were worrying him. Whitie 
had backed up against a boulder and was 
striking out so vigorously that the dogs did 
not dare to venture too near to him. Fi¬ 
nally he landed a blow upon the face of a 
venturesome pup and sent him sprawling 
on the ground. Then little Oumauk knew 
that Whitie was fully able to take care of 
himself as far as the dogs were concerned. 

It was a most important day in Eskimo 
Town when the belongings of the town were 
packed upon the komatiks and the inhabi¬ 
tants started on their annual migration to 
Eskimo Village, about a hundred miles to 
the northward. Of course they only took 
such of their belongings as they knew they 
would need during the summer. 

The snow was nearly gone, and the ko¬ 
matiks scratched and bumped along, so the 
dogs had all they could do to pull the load. 

The reason for this move was that the 
walrus and the seals had all gone northward 
with the ice floe. Also, many of the ducks 


106 


The White Czar 


and the wild geese nested on islands further 
north, and all the best cod fishing grounds 
were there also. 

So the Eskimo followed the walrus, the 
seals, and the ice floe along the rather bleak 
coast of Eskimo Land. 

Little Oumauk and Whitie trudged after 
Eiseeyou’s komatik. Oumauk was much 
excited about the trip, for he saw many new 
things. His father pointed out to him all 
the interesting sights, and told him the 
names of the birds that they saw. Finally 
after about ten days, they arrived in sight 
of Eskimo Village. 

It was on the side of a gently sloping 
hill, with a fine view of the sea. As soon as 
the komatiks halted, the dogs were let loose, 
and the men set up the cloth tents in which 
they would live during the summer. 

It was surprising how rapidly pale flow¬ 
ers and grass sprang into being, under the 
rays of the eighteen hours a day sunlight. 
When they came to the season of continuous 
day in July and August, then these plants 
would grow even more rapidly. 

As soon as the summer quarters were put 


Whitie and Little Oumauk 107 

in order, the Eskimos turned their atten¬ 
tion to fishing. 

Each day both the men and the women 
would go forth in the large square-ended 
boats to fish. These boats are very steady 
and so are especially good for fishing. The 
Eskimo name means woman’s boat and it 
is used derisively. But they are much bet¬ 
ter for fishing than is the unstable kayak, 
which carries only one person. 

The fishing is done in rather shallow 
water corresponding to the Newfoundland 
Banks, only it is several hundred miles 
further north. The best fish that they take 
is the cod. They use two brightly painted 
hooks which are kept rapidly moving up 
and down just above the floor of the ocean. 
This kind of fishing is called jigging. 

If the cod fishing is good, it will not be 
many days before all through Eskimo Vil¬ 
lage the fish will be seen drying on poles 
which keep them well up out of the way of 
the ravenous dogs. 

Little Oumauk and Whitie were left very 
much to themselves during these long, warm 
days and they had the finest kind of a sum- 


108 


The White Czar 


mer. They played upon the rocks or in 
the sand along the seashore, or even went 
half a mile inland; but Oumauk did not 
like to go very far out of sight of Eskimo 
Village. 

Whitie was always doing strange things 
which both interested Oumauk and piqued 
his curiosity. He discovered that the young 
bear was very fond of ants and grubs and 
Oumauk soon learned to turn over the 
stones for him and to help him dig in the 
likely places. Whitie also liked certain 
roots and whenever he came to such as 
pleased his taste, Oumauk would have to 
wait until he had satisfied his appetite for 
that particular day. 

Whitie was also very fond of certain wild 
berries which grew upon the marshes. 
These were a sort of wild cranberry. 

The first time that Oumauk saw his com¬ 
panion jump from a shelving rock into the 
sea and start to swim out from shore, he 
was much frightened and ran to his father 
crying that Whitie would be drowned. 

But Eiseeyou hastened to inform his 
young son that Whitie’s ancestors had all 


Whitie and Little Oumauk 109 

been good swimmers and that Whitie could 
swim in the water almost as well as Oumauk 
could walk on the land. 

He did not have to be taught to swim 
either, as a boy would. He simply kept 
his head up and his feet paddling. He was 
not afraid, and that was more than half the 
battle. 

Whitie was very fond of fish, but he did 
not like them dried. 

When they cleaned the great cod, he 
would lie nearby watching for the heads 
which Oumauk would throw to him. 

Finally in July the sun came northward 
and stayed with them for about two months. 
So then they had to go inside the cloth tents 
and sleep for a certain part of each twenty- 
four hours, even though the sun was shin¬ 
ing. But they did not need as much sleep 
then as they did when the days and nights 
were more apparent. 

One day Eiseeyou took Oumauk and 
Whitie with him in his large boat to the 
fishing ground. Oumauk was all excite¬ 
ment to see how the fish were caught. But 
Whitie finally concluded it was very dull 


110 


The White Czar 


sport and lay down on the bottom of the 
boat and went to sleep. Or at least they 
thought he was sleeping soundly, but he 
finally aroused himself enough to spoil one 
of the best cod by gnawing into it. 

At last the long day ceased and the short 
nights came for an hour or two each day. 
Then there came a chill in the air and frosts 
during the nights. So since they had laid 
in a good supply of dried fish and eider 
ducks’ down, not to mention eggs and dead 
birds, the inhabitants of Eskimo Village be¬ 
gan to think of returning to Eskimo Town 
which was always their winter quarters. 
But they usually waited until the first slight 
snowstorm made the komatiks pull easier. 
This generally came late in September. 

Finally one cold morning when Oumauk 
arose and looked out of doors, he saw that 
the ground was white with snow. There 
was but two or three inches, yet it would 
serve the purpose for the sledges. So after 
breakfast the cloth tents and the Eskimos 7 
belongings were packed. The supply of 
fish and eider ducks’ meat and eggs was 


Whitie and Little Oumauk 111 

made safe and in two or three hours the en¬ 
tire village was on the march. 

When they had come northward, Whitie 
had been a timid, playful cub, but now he 
was several times larger than he had been 
then, and rather boisterous. He could hold 
his own with any of the dogs in battle, and 
he had acquired much independence. But 
little Oumauk could do anything with him. 
A month or so before they left Eskimo 
Village Oumauk had learned to ride on 
Whitie’s back, so the bear now carried his 
little master for the better part of the long 
one hundred-mile march. 

But once they were back in the igloo, Ou¬ 
mauk ’s mother protested against having so 
large a bear as Whitie had become in the 
igloo all the time; so he slept much of the 
time in a deserted igloo nearby. Even now 
he was beginning to suggest what a monster 
he would be when he should attain the stat¬ 
ure and weight of a full-grown polar bear. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WHITE CZAR 

The transition of Whitie to the White 
Czar took several years, and it was a most 
interesting period for both little Oumauk 
and the young bear. That first winter after 
their return from Eskimo Village there was 
continual friction between Oumauk and his 
mother as to how much the bear should 
be allowed in the igloo. When he had been 
a small cub weighing only eight or ten 
pounds, that was one thing; but when he had 
become a rather mischievous and boisterous 
yearling as large as a good-sized dog, that 
was quite another. 

Besides, Whitie was destructive. The 
things that he did not get into were much 
fewer than those he did. But little Ou¬ 
mauk defended him in all his mischief and 
was nearly heart-broken if any one so much 
as hinted that Whitie was not perfect. 

Even when he tore Oumauk’s new parka to 

112 


The White Czar 113 

ribbons, bis young master was for excusing 
him. 

The men who came to the igloo used to 
play rough-and-tumble with Whitie and 
wrestle and box with him. This made him 
so boisterous that Eiseeyou finally forbade 
their engaging him in these rough plays, for 
fear he would injure his small master. But 
with Oumauk the bear was always most gen¬ 
tle. He seemed to understand in a dim way 
that the small Eskimo boy was his master 
and that he should protect and be gentle 
with him. Oumauk’s little sister was very 
much afraid of Whitie for a long time, and 
Oumauk used to tease her by telling her that 
bears often ate small girls, if they didn’t 
mind their brothers. 

With the inactivity of winter it was sur¬ 
prising how rapidly Whitie grew. But he 
was not so inactive as were the humans; for 
he often wandered far from Eskimo Town, 
even when he was a yearling. 

With the return of Spring, Eiseeyou, Ou¬ 
mauk and Whitie were again seen on the 
hilltop setting up their net for the auk, and 
this spring Oumauk could help more than 


114 


The White Czar 


he had the year before. When they finally 
packed up their belongings and again 
started for Eskimo Village, Oumauk and 
Whitie were the most excited members of 
the party. This time Oumauk rode all of 
the way on Whitie’s back. He could do 
anything with the shaggy white beast, al¬ 
though his mother was by this time afraid 
of the bear. 

Arrived at Eskimo Village, the tents were 
again set up and the women and men got 
busy fishing and drying fish. Whitie now 
evinced a desire to roam and often was gone 
for half a day. The first time that he failed 
to appear at night Oumauk was heartbroken 
and thought he had lost him forever, but 
very early in the morning he was awakened 
by something soft passing over his face and 
opened his eyes to see the white bear stand¬ 
ing over him. 

One eventful day Eiseeyou took Oumauk 
on an expedition to a nearby island where 
he and several other Eskimos went for eider 
ducks’ down and eggs. They took several 
sacks in which to bring home the eggs and 
the down. They went in one of the large 



Oumauk rode all the way on Whitie’s back 



















The White Czar 


115 


square-ended boats, called women’s boats. 

The island was about two miles from the 
main land and Oumauk was much troubled 
when Whitie, who had watched their start 
from the shore, started to swim after them. 
Oumauk cried out to his father that Whitie 
could not swim so far and that he would 
be drowned. But Eiseeyou said that he 
was a famous swimmer and would be all 
right. Oumauk, however, was not so sure, 
and he kept his beady, black eyes glued upon 
the white spot which he knew was Whitie’s 
head until they reached the island. He 
was elated, however, when the bear arrived 
on the island a few minutes behind them. 

Although Whitie was dripping with 
water, Oumauk threw himself upon his 
friend and hugged him generously. But 
to the surprise of all, Whitie seemed per¬ 
fectly at home on the island and at once 
went to the place where there were the most 
eider duck nests. Here he began sucking 
the eggs in a very greedy manner. Eisee¬ 
you laughed at the sight, and Oumauk was 
delighted to see his pet was so clever. 

The men at once set to work to gather the 


116 


The White Czar 


down from the nests and also the large, rich 
eggs. It was surprising how plenty the 
nests and eggs were. One could hardly 
move without stepping on the nests. The 
ducks flew up in scores. 

Finally, when all the bags had been filled 
with either eggs or down, and the men had 
shot several dozen ducks for their larder, 
to vary their fish diet, the hunting party 
returned to Eskimo Village. Whitie again 
swam the distance to the mainland, although 
Oumauk wanted him taken into the boat. 

Another still more wonderful day was 
when Eiseeyou took Oumauk to some more 
distant islands to see the seal rookeries. 
These were their summer breeding places, 
called hauling grounds. 

This time they went in Eiseeyou’s kayak 
and Oumauk was stowed away under the 
deck of the canoe, his head merely peeping 
out under his father’s arm. 

It was a beautiful trip. The sea was like 
glass. The late May sunshine thrilled them 
like old wine, and both father and son were 
very glad. 

Arrived at the breeding grounds which 


The White Czar 


117 


were oil several islands, Oumauk was 
amazed, as many a grown man lias been by 
the numbers of the seals and also with their 
fearlessness. 

Hundreds and even thousands of them 
were disporting themselves in the sunlight. 
Some were lying asleep while others were 
flopping about on their flippers, much like 
boys playing leap frog. 

Oumauk was wild with delight when his 
father showed him a seal pup. It was snow- 
white to match the snow and hide it from 
its enemies, and about a foot long. It 
would have weighed about seven pounds. 
It was not shaped like much of anything 
in particular, but was a soft slippery mass 
of fat, covered with a wonderfully soft fur. 
When Eiseeyou took it up and placed it in 
little Oumauk’s arms, it bleated like a small 
lamb and squirmed about to get away. The 
bleating of the mothers also sounded much 
like the lowing of young heifers. 

Eiseeyou pointed out several sly foxes 

Note: In the northern hemisphere the seal pup is white. 
This is to screen him from such enemies as the bear, the wolf, 
and the fox. In the southern hemisphere where these animals 
do not exist, he is the same color as the adult seal. 


11/8 


The White Czar 


that scampered away at their approach. 
He told Oumauk that the foxes and the 
polar bears, like Whitie, followed the seals 
to these breeding grounds, killing the seal 
pups and eating them. At this, Oumauk 
was very indignant. 

Presently the mother of the seal pup 
which they were fondling came bleating up 
out of the water, and Eiseeyou hastily 
placed it on the ground and took Oumauk 
to a little distance to watch the meeting 
between the pup and the mother. 

The mother greeted the pup with several 
queer sounds all low and tender and nosed 
it over from head to tail to see if it had been 
injured. When she had satisfied herself 
that it was all right, both lay down in the 
sunshine and slept. 

Further on in the island Eiseeyou pointed 
out several old bull seals sleeping in a warm 
place. He set Oumauk on a nearby rock 
while he himself went to awaken a large 
bull so that the Eskimo boy might get a 
better idea of him. 

This old chap seemed to be the grand¬ 
father of the whole herd. He was about 



The White Czar 


119 


seven feet in length and would have weighed 
about seven hundred pounds. This was an 
extreme size for the seal. 

When Eiseeyou went up to him and 
prodded him in the side with his paddle, he 
lifted his large head and bellowed might¬ 
ily, but made no move to attack the Eskimo. 
Finally he aroused himself enough to look 
at Eiseeyou sideways. He seemed much 
perplexed by this creature which stood erect 
instead of on four flippers. Finally he got 
up and started slowly towards Eiseeyou, 
who then retreated to the rock where Ou- 
mauk watched. The Eskimo boy was much 
terrified at the approach of so mighty a 
creature, but Eiseeyou assured him that the 
seal was very clumsy on the land and it 
would be easy to elude him. 

After reconnoitering the rock on which 
the two stood and peering at them from 
every angle, the old bull went back to his 
warm bed in the sand and was soon sleep¬ 
ing peacefully again. 

One day several weeks later when Eisee¬ 
you and Oumauk had occasion to visit an 
island nearer the mainland, where there 


120 


The White Czar 


were also young seals. They were much 
surprised to discover Whitie there ahead 
of them. He was lying in the lee of a rock 
and was eating something. As they came 
near, they discovered that it was a seal pup. 
So even this early he was plying the trade 
of a full grown polar bear, and killing the 
young seals. 

Oumauk was very indignant and scolded 
Whitie severely, but Eiseeyou explained to 
him that this was the way of nature, that 
the larger fish ate the smaller, all the way 
down the scale. 

The inhabitants of Eskimo Village al¬ 
ways saw a great deal of the seals during 
their summers, so little Oumauk learned all 
about them. Some of this information he 
gleaned from watching them himself, but 
much of it was told him by his father. 

He learned that the seals came to the 
rookeries to breed in May, when for a few 
weeks it was unlawful to kill them. But 
in June they were mating again, and each 
bull seal would select a dozen lady seals for 
the summer. During this season of court- 


The White Czar 


121 


ing, the male seals do not partake of any 
food, so when they finally swim away in Oc¬ 
tober for the Southern seas the bulls are 
much emaciated and hardly to be recognized 
for the sleek fellows they were in June. 

The seals were always watching the Es¬ 
kimo fishing boats, and Eiseeyou told his 
son that they bothered the fisherman further 
south by taking their fish from the trollers, 
and also from the nets. 

Although the seal is a bulky chap and 
swims clumsily in comparison to a fish, yet 
he will catch fish with ease when they could 
easily swim away from him if they only 
knew it. 

The approach of such a monster seems to 
strike terror to the heart of the fish, and 
he falls an easy prey. 

The most unpleasant thing about life in 
Eskimo Village is the mosquitoes which 
swarm in dark clouds in the Arctic regions 
during the long summer days. It is only 
by making a great smudge about the tents 
that the Eskimos can escape them. They 
drive the caribou nearly desperate, but 



122 


The White Czar 


Omingmong does not mind them as his coat 
is so long, and they do not much inhabit his 
cold latitude. 

Whitie had a very novel way of escap¬ 
ing them, which greatly pleased Oumauk. 
When the mosquitoes had stung his eyes so 
that he could hardly see out of them, he 
would take to the water. There he would 
submerge himself and lie for hours with 
just the tip of his nose showing. If the mos¬ 
quitoes swarmed on the end of his nose he 
would get even with them by drawing it un¬ 
der quickly and wetting them. 

Thus the summer went with the Eskimo 
fishing and drying fish, gathering birds’ 
eggs, and killing enough ducks and geese 
for their immediate need, and also gather¬ 
ing down for the market. They likewise 
tried out considerable seal oil for use in 
the stonelamp during the long night when 
they would need all the light they could get. 

Then in the autumn came the annual mi¬ 
gration back to Eskimo Town. 

It was not a varied or exciting life, as a 
white boy would look at it. But to Oumauk 
it was full of wonder and mystery, for he 


The White Czar 


123 


was constantly learning of the wild life 
about him and of the ways of nature. As 
for Whitie, he grew and grew until he was 
finally forbidden to enter the igloo. But 
that was unnecessary, for when he was three 
years old he had grown so large that he 
could not crawl through the tunnel leading 
to Eiseeyou’s igloo. 

As he gained his full stature and weight, 
all the women in Eskimo Town became 
afraid of him. Many of the men were 
afraid of him as well. Some of them even 
counseled Eiseeyou to shoot him, but he 
would not hear of it. He knew that it would 
break Oumauk’s heart. The Eskimo boy 
could do anything with the great shaggy 
beast. He was no more afraid of him than 
he was of the wolfish dogs. Probably no 
white boy ever loved a dog as Oumauk did 
Whitie. 

Whitie by this time had acquired all the 
wisdom of a wild polar bear. He knew 
where to find the seal pups and kill them 
on the ice floe. He could even attack a full 
grown seal and kill that as well. He had 
several times performed that dangerous 


124 


The White Czar 


stunt of swimming upon the walrus herd 
when the adults were asleep and snatching 
a calf before they knew what was up. He 
knew where to find the ducks and geese 
eggs on the islands along the coast and he 
grew fat upon the delicious eggs. He knew 
all the berries and roots that a polar bear 
likes. He also knew how to drive the fish 
into the shallows along the shore and then 
strike them from the water with his big 
paw. 

He had stalked and killed a caribou calf 
when he was only two years old and it had 
nearly cost him his life. The bull had sur¬ 
prised him in the act and had charged 
the murderer and gored him badly in the 
shoulder. 

Once while in pursuit of a walrus calf, 
he had been attacked by a killer whale and 
had escaped miraculously with a. mighty 
gash along his entire side. This had laid 
him up for nearly a month, but he had been 
carefully attended by his master, Oumauk, 
during this sorry time. So it will be seen 
that even the life of the polar bear is not all 
roses. If he hunts the other polar crea- 


The White Czar 


125 


tures, yet he is often hunted himself. 

Nor did Whitie entirely escape the rifles 
of the hunters. Eiseeyou had warned all 
the Eskimos along Eskimo land coast not to 
shoot at him; hut how was he to be told 
from any other white bear? So he was 
once badly wounded by a rifle ball which, 
luckily for the happiness of Eiseeyou’s 
igloo, did not hit a vital spot. 

Finally, to prevent his being shot and 
killed by some lawless Eskimo, Eiseeyou 
made a broad, strong leather collar for 
Whitie and covered it with bright red flan¬ 
nel. This could be plainly seen a hundred 
yards away, almost as far away as any one 
would naturally shoot at him. So it became 
known all through Eskimo Land that the 
great white bear with the red collar be¬ 
longed to Eiseeyou and little Oumauk, and 
was not to be shot. 

By this time Whitie, or the White Czar 
as I shall henceforth call him, lived almost 
as much away from Eskimo town as he did 
at home. He was half wild and half do¬ 
mesticated. But the only person in Es¬ 
kimo Town who could lay a hand on him 



126 


The White Czar 


was Oumauk, and the only man who was 
not afraid of him was Biseeyon. But he 
came and went a much privileged hear, still 
as much beloved by his small master as ever. 

So life with the people of the snow went 
by until the White Czar was six years old. 
He had then come to his full stature and 
weight, which was about six hundred 
pounds. He had mated three times and 
often been away from Eskimo Town for 
months. 

Oumauk himself was nine years old and 
a stalwart lad. There were now several 
other children in Eiseeyou’s igloo, but Ou¬ 
mauk was his favorite. 

In the autumn of the year when Oumauk 
was nine and the White Czar was six years 
old, a terrible plague visited Eskimo Town. 
It would not have been serious among white 
people, but the Eskimo is very dirty and he 
easily falls a prey to contagious diseases. 
The disease swept through the little com¬ 
munity like wild fire. The Eskimos did 
what they could. They applied some sim¬ 
ple remedies which they secured from the 


The White Czar 


127 


mission farther south, and the local medi¬ 
cine man pounded on his large drum and en¬ 
treated all the gods of health that he knew 
of, but all to no avail. Hardly an hour of 
a day passed but some Eskimo mother ran 
shrieking from her igloo, wringing her 
hands and calling to her friends that death 
had claimed one of her children. 

In the igloo of Eiseeyou, little sister was 
the first to go. Then two of the smaller 
children followed her. Finally Eiseeyou’s 
favorite, Oumauk, was stricken. He did 
not die although he was very sick for sev¬ 
eral days. When he finally got better, there 
was great rejoicing in the igloo. But this 
was cut short one night by a terrible dis¬ 
covery. 

Oumauk ran crying to his mother, com¬ 
plaining that the stone lamp gave no light. 
It was all night in the igloo. His mother 
assured him that it was burning brightly, 
but he said no, and went groping about for 
the light. This filled the hearts of his par¬ 
ents with foreboding. On the morrow when 
the sun finally appeared for two or three 




128 The White Czar 

hours, Eiseeyou took him out of doors, but 
he said the same thing of the sun. The sun 
had gone out. It gave no light. 

Then Eiseeyou and his good kooner knew 
a terrible thing had happened. The mea¬ 
sles had struck to Oumauk’s eyes and left 
him blind. 

The next day Eiseeyou took his stricken 
son to the settlement further south, where 
the missionary examined him carefully. 

He shook his head after the examination. 
Only the great doctor at Quebec could help 
him, and that would take lots of money 
and a long journey. At these words Eisee¬ 
you turned his steps sorrowfully homeward 
and despair reigned all that winter in his 
igloo. 



CHAPTER X 


THE BETRAYAL 

The winter following the epidemic which 
had taken so many of the children from 
them was a gloomy winter for Eskimo 
Town. 

In Eiseeyou’s igloo gloom rested even 
more darkly than elsewhere. 

Not only had he lost three of his children, 
but the long night of blindness had settled 
upon his favorite Oumauk, and the shadow 
also rested upon him. This was a double 
tragedy for Oumauk, as his sister who had 
been his playmate ever since he could re¬ 
member had also been taken. The whole 
circle of sad events seemed to Oumauk like 
a bad dream from which he must presently 
awake and see his sister by his side and 
the stonelamp shining brightly. The joy 
seemed to have all gone out of the Eskimo 
boy. He would sit for hours with his head 
in his hands thinking and wondering what 

129 


130 


The White Czar 


it all meant. He was very silent and would 
answer only when questioned. Before this 
tragedy he had been a great chatterbox, so 
this made him seem doubly strange. The 
rest of the family tried to interest him. Ei- 
seeyou sought to invent new games in which 
he could participate. But he could no 
longer throw the tiny harpoon at the swing¬ 
ing target, the favorite pastime of Eskimo 
boys, so he did nothing. 

Sometimes Eiseeyou or some of the chil¬ 
dren would dress him up warm in his best 
clothes and lead him about outside, but he 
seemed to feel the cold more than ever be¬ 
fore and soon pleaded to be taken inside. 

Eiseeyou himself was greatly troubled 
and he planned day and night how to raise 
the large sum of money so that he might 
take little Oumauk to Quebec, where the 
great doctor might restore his eyesight. 

He went upon several hard musk ox hunts 
but ill luck crowned each venture. Al¬ 
though he scoured the old hunting grounds 
for days, yet Omingmong was not to be 
found. Eiseeyou’s skill and luck as a 
hunter seemed to have deserted him. 


181 


The Betrayal 

Then he doubled the number of his fox- 
traps, but several deep snows fell so that 
he had no luck trapping. At last hope had 
nearly left him, although he was still on 
the lookout for the chance to earn the great 
sum of money, which looked like a mountain 
of gold to the poor Eskimo. 

So it was that the weary winter wore away 
and spring again came. When Eiseeyou 
proposed to Oumauk that he again go with 
him to set up the net for the auks, the boy 
said that the long night was still with them, 
and that the auk would not come back until 
the sun shone again. So he would not go. 
When he finally ventured from the igloo 
and felt the warm air of springtime, he was 
much puzzled. Spring had really come, 
but the long night was still there. 

It was just after the return of the auk 
and other spring birds which meant so much 
to the Eskimo that Eskimo Town was vis¬ 
ited by two white men. They came upon 
small ponies and were a great curiosity to 
the simple Snow People. 

They were the agents of several large cit¬ 
ies to the south, both in Canada and the 


132 


The White Czar 


States. They were in search of wild ani¬ 
mals and birds for the zoos of these cities 
and they needed the services of some clever 
Eskimo hunter to help them in capturing 
the birds and animals they wanted. At 
the settlement to the south Eiseeyou had 
been recommended to them by the mission¬ 
aries and government teachers. Would he 
go with them on a cruise to the north and 
help them in securing the animals? 

They offered him as wages a sum of 
money which would be half enough to take 
Oumauk to see the great doctor. They 
would be gone only two months. 

Eiseeyou consulted with his good kooner 
and they agreed that it was a great chance. 
The good God had sent the white men in 
order that they might have the money. 
Little Oumauk should not always stay in 
the long dark night. 

So Eiseeyou arranged that some of the 
other men would take charge of his family 
during the northern migration to Eskimo 
Village, in order that he might go with the 
white men. 

He said goodbye to his family and to little 


133 


The Betrayal 

Oumauk, whom he told that he would soon 
bring the sun back to him. Then he set off 
with the strangers with a lighter heart than 
he had known for months. 

Eiseeyou was much surprised on arriving 
at the small seaport which the strangers 
made their head quarters to find that they 
had a large steam launch fifty or sixty feet 
in length, named The Spray all fitted up in 
a manner that looked luxuriant to the sim¬ 
ple Eskimo. They at once started north¬ 
ward and finally stopped among the islands 
adjacent to the site of Eskimo Village, 
where Eiseeyou was much at home. They 
secured during the first week eider duck, 
Brant geese, gulls of several species, and 
auks, all of which Eiseeyou helped them to 
net. Then they turned their attention to 
seals. Soon they had a fine assortment of 
pups and yearlings, and several pairs of 
two year olds. 

They also secured two walrus calves and 
two litters of foxes, the burrows of which 
Eiseeyou had located. 

It was while prospecting about on the 
islands one day that they came across The 


134 


The White Czar 


White Czar, who had preceded the inhabi¬ 
tants of Eskimo Town to their summer 
quarters at Eskimo Village. 

At the sight of the great white bear tears 
filled the eyes of Eiseeyou for it brought 
to his remembrance the sad picture of poor 
little Oumauk groping helplessly about in 
the igloo and declaring that the light in the 
stone lamp had gone out. 

The white men saw the great white bear 
almost as soon as Eiseeyou did, and were 
much excited. For in the orders that they 
had brought north with them was a special 
recommendation that they capture a polar 
bear, alive, for the zoo at Quebec. 

They at once communicated their hopes 
of securing a polar bear to Eiseeyou, and 
asked his assistance. 

Then it was that the famous Eskimo 
hunter sat down upon a rock with the two 
white men and told them the strange story 
of Whitie and little Oumauk. He told it 
with tears streaming down his cheeks and 
with such earnestness and feeling that the 
white men were amazed. 

“You see,” he concluded, “little Ou- 




135 


The Betrayal 

mauk loves the bear more than anything 
else in the world; and if he knew I had 
helped to capture him, it would kill him. 
His heart is almost broken now. I cannot 
make him sad any more, but I must have 
the money so he can see the great doctor. 
I must.” 

“Yes, that is so,” agreed the white men. 
“You must.” 

“It is a sort of providence,” they argued, 
“that you know about this white bear, which 
you say is partly tame. He would be easier 
to capture than a wild bear. And you must 
have the money. Think of what it means 
to little Oumauk. 

“The sun would come back again for him. 
The moon and the stars would shine for him 
once more. It must be very hard for him, a 
little boy alone in the dark.” 

They were white men, and they knew how 
to argue and to make bad things look good. 
Eiseeyou was only a simple Eskimo and he 
needed the money desperately. So he fi¬ 
nally agreed. He would help; he would help 
them capture the White Czar. But little 
Oumauk must never know for it would 


136 


The White Czar 


break his heart. It already ached enough. 

So the ship’s carpenter set to work the 
following day making a cage for the White 
Czar. The frame was made of three by 
six timbers and the rest of the cage was 
two inch plank. Eiseeyou shook his head 
and said it was rather frail to hold him, for 
he knew the great bear’s strength better 
than the white men. So they bolted it at 
all the corners and bound it with iron straps, 
which would stiffen it without making it 
too heavy. Finally it was all ready, and 
with a heavy heart Eiseeyou set forth with 
four white men in a motor boat to betray 
the White Czar into the clutch of civiliza¬ 
tion—that great strong hand which reaches 
forth to the ends of the earth and grasps 
so many beautiful and wonderful things, 
only to kill both their beauty and life at 
last. 

They found the white bear upon a small 
island eating a seal pup. But when one of 
their number landed he at once took to the 
water in an attempt to swim to another 
island nearer the mainland. That was just 
what the men wanted. 



137 


The Betrayal 

Now the White Czar is the very best 
swimmer of all quadrupeds. He can swim 
for hours in the icy water. Miles in the 
water are nothing to him, if he has the time 
in which to do them. 

But the poor white monster had never 
heard of a motor boat. All of the modern 
engines for annihilating distance were un¬ 
known to him. He was amazed and rather 
frightened at the speed with which this 
strange thing came after him. But he was 
not really afraid, for he was the White 
Czar. He was the Czar of the frozen 
north; and why should he be afraid ? But 
he could not understand this strange chug¬ 
ging thing. It had neither head nor legs, 
yet it swam like a great fish. 

Before he had covered half the distance 
to the other island, it was almost upon him. 
Then he turned with an angry snarl to fight. 
He raised his head up out of the water and 
showed his shining set of teeth and snarled 
at the white hunters in a way that made 
their blood run cold. If their plans should 
miscarry—if he got at them, it would be a 
fight to the finish. 





138 


The White Czar 


But the White Czar had also never heard 
of a lasso, and when he reared his head 
above the water, a rawhide rope fell fairly 
over his head. In another second it had 
tightened upon his neck with a strangling 
grip. 

He clutched at it with his great paws and 
tried to loosen it, hut could not. So he 
swam straight at his assailants, his long 
tongue lolling out, and his mighty jaw open 
ready for the fatal bite. 

But the strange fish was not slower than 
the white bear, for the man at the helm saw 
their danger and pulled the throttle wide 
open. His action was not a second too 
quick, for the great bear was almost upon 
the boat before it had gained headway. 

Yet it just eluded him and in a very few 
seconds had put the length of the rawhide 
rope between him and his tormentors. 

Then began a series of tiring-out Ina- 
noeuvers that made Eiseeyou’s heart ache. 
More than once he brushed away the tears 
and set his thoughts firmly upon little Ou- 
mauk who was living in the long night. 
They must all make sacrifices for him. It 



130 


The Betrayal 

was just and right that the White Czar 
should be sacrificed. 

They did not give the great hear a mo¬ 
ment in which to rest. For hours they 
dragged him about mercilessly at the end of 
the rawhide. If he stopped swimming 
after them, they came close and prodded 
him with a harpoon and aroused his anger. 
Soon they had two rawhide ropes about his 
great neck, and this spelled his doom. 

He lashed the water into foam. He 
roared and struck with his paws. He 
bit at and fought the ropes about his neck 
which were slowly choking him, with his 
great strength, but it was a foe he could not 
get at. It always ran away, it taunted and 
mocked him. 

It prodded and choked him and gradually 
it wore him down to a helpless mass of quiv¬ 
ering muscles, with the heart and the fight 
all gone out of him. 

It seemed to poor Eiseeyou during this 
terrible ordeal that the bear kept his eyes 
constantly fixed on him. It seemed to him 
that the great brute was accusing him, was 
imploring him, was appealing to him to save 


/ 


140 


The White Czar 


him. But he had given his word to help, 
and he could do nothing. 

Finally the motor boat towed the nearly 
lifeless Czar along side The Spray, and the 
men quickly lifted him to the deck. This 
was after several ropes had been passed 
about his great, almost lifeless hulk. Then 
he was lifted by a fearful and wondering 
crew into the cage that had been prepared 
for him. There for hours he lay in the 
bottom of his cage with his great head be¬ 
tween his paws, moaning and groaning, his 
spirit broken and seemingly near to death. 

Meanwhile Eiseeyou walked the deck of 
the great boat, his simple soul wracked in 
devilish torment. Occasionally he would 
come and stand by the cage and look at The 
White Czar. Then he would remember 
what a lovable little chap he had been as a 
cub, and how little Oumauk had loved him. 
Then he would go away to pace the deck 
again. 

Thus the first night of the White Czar’s 
captivity wore away; but whether it was 
longer for the great beast or for the ago¬ 
nized man, who shall say ? 


CHAPTER XI 


/ 




THE WRECK 

The day following the capture of the 
White Czar the Eskimos arrived at their 
summer quarters and again set up their 
cloth tents. Eiseeyou at once went ashore 
to see that all was well with his little family. 
That afternoon when he returned to the 
ship, Mr. Adams, the head of the expedition 
surprised Eiseeyou very much by telling 
him that they were to start on the return 
trip on the morrow, and that if he wished, 
Eiseeyou and little Oumauk might go with 
them as far as Quebec. This would save 
them passage money and also save time. 

Eiseeyou was overjoyed at this news. He 
thanked the white man in his broken Eng¬ 
lish and then hastened away to tell his 
kooner and to get Oumauk. 

When he undertook to explain to Ou¬ 
mauk the nature of their trip, the boy was 
much surprised. He could not understand 

141 


i 


142 


The White Czar 


that his eyes were sick, and that was what 
made the long night. He had thought all 
the time that the light in the stone lamp and 
the light in the sun and moon had gone out, 
while he was all right. This had been his 
first fancy, and Eiseeyou had let him keep 
it, thinking it would be easier to bear in that 
way. 

When he was told that the great doctor 
at Quebec might again make his eyes see, 
he became happy for the first time in many 
months. When in addition to that he was 
told that he was to go on a great ship far 
away over the ocean, he was much 
excited. 

“I wish I knew one thing before I go,” 
he said when they were helping hifn dress 
for the journey. “I had a bad dream last 
night. I dreamed that Whitie was in 
trouble. I saw him in my dream just as I 
used to. He was on an island eating a seal 
pup. Then a man came upon the island and 
scared him away. Then Whitie started to 
swim but some bad men chased him in a 
boat that didn’t have any sail and they did 
not paddle it, but it just went and went by 


The Wreck 


143 


itself. Poor Whitie swam and swam just 
as fast as lie could, but they caught up to 
him and threw a rope and caught him by 
the neck. Then Whitie fighted and lighted, 
but they pulled on the rope and choked him. 
They choked and choked until Whitie was 
almost dead. Then they pulled him up into 
another ship as large as a mountain and put 
him in a great box and he laid down and 
cried and cried and cried. Then I woke up 
and I was crying too.” 

“Have you seen Whitie?” asked the Es¬ 
kimo boy with tears in his eyes, pulling at 
Eiseeyou’s sleeve. 

The Eskimo was dumfounded at this ac¬ 
count of Oumauk’s dream, for it corre¬ 
sponded almost perfectly to what had hap¬ 
pened the day before. Like all Eskimos he 
was very superstitious, and this had a sort 
of supernatural appearance to him. So he 
crossed himself before replying. Then he 
answered warily. 

“Yes, I saw Whitie. He was eating a 
seal pup. He was all right.” 

“Is he all right now?” insisted Oumauk, 
his voice trembling with excitement. 


144 


The White Czar 


“Yes,” replied poor Eiseeyou, “Whitie 
is all right.” 

Oumauk sighed contentedly. “O I am 
so glad. Now we will go to the city and see 
the great doctor and he will make my eyes 
well, and the light will come back to the 
sun.” He laughed gleefully, something 
that he had not done for a long time, and 
Esieeyou was much relieved. 

Toward night Oumauk and Eiseeyou said 
goodbye to the rest of the family, and two 
other Eskimo men rowed them out to the 
ship in one of the Eskimo boats. 

As Eiseeyou climbed up the steps with 
little Oumauk in his arms and finally set 
his foot upon the firm deck, the boy cried 
out excitedly, and what he said made Eisee¬ 
you go pale beneath his swarthy skin. 

“Oh, oh,” cried Oumauk, sniffing the air 
again and again, “I smell Whitie. I smell 
Whitie. Has he been on this ship 

Eiseeyou knew that his race have a very 
keen sense of smell almost akin to that pos¬ 
sessed by many Indians, but that Oumauk 
would have noted the musty smell of the 
great bear so soon amazed him. 


The Wreck 


145 


“Whitie was on the island eating a seal 
pup, when I saw him,” he said. 

“You must not get so excited about him. 
Just think about the doctor and your eyes 
being made well.” 

Eiseeyou hastened with Oumauk to the 
cabin where he put him in his bunk and told 
him that night was coming on and he must 
rest. 

After the Eskimo boy had eaten a supper 
of the white man’s food, he asked his father 
to take him out upon the deck; but Eiseeyou 
refused, fearing that he would hear the 
great bear who was still moaning and sigh¬ 
ing in his cage at one end of the ship. 

The following morning Mr. Adams in¬ 
formed Eiseeyou that the White Czar re¬ 
fused all food, and that he was afraid he 
would die. 

“In that case,” continued Mr. Adams, 
“we will not get the large sum of money 
that we had expected for him alive, so we 
could not pay you so much.” 

At these words Eiseeyou’s heart sank. 
Perhaps there would not be money enough 
for them to see the doctor after all. Maybe 


146 


The White Czar 


their trip would be for nothing. He could 
not take the little Oumauk back unless he 
had brought the joy of living again to his 
face. He must see the doctor. The White 
Czar must live. 

“You say your son can do anything with 
him,” continued Mr. Adams. “Perhaps 
he could coax him to eat. I would try it if 
I were you. We must keep him alive for 
both our sakes.” 

So Eiseeyou set himself the hard task of 
telling Oumauk. 

He had never lied to his son before, and 
he did not know how to account for his un¬ 
truth. But love makes us all strong, so Ei¬ 
seeyou went bravely through it. 

He explained to Oumauk at length how 
necessary it was for them to see the doctor, 
and how much money it took. He told him 
that Mr. Adams had offered a large sum of 
money if he would help him catch the bear, 
and that all their happiness depended on it. 
Oumauk listened stoically as is the way with 
his people, then asked simply: 

“Must Whitie be shut up all his life so 
that I can see the sun again'?” 


The Wreck 


147 


“Yes, I’m afraid so,” returned Eiseeyou. 

“Is Whitie happy? Does he like to he 
shut up?” 

“No,” said Eiseeyou truthfully. “He is 
very unhappy and he does not like to be 
shut up. He is so unhappy that he will not 
eat.” 

“Then I will let him out. I do not want 
to see if Whitie is to be sorry all the 
time.” 

Eiseeyou then explained very patiently 
that this was impossible, as he had told the 
white man he would help him. He also said 
that many white children would love Whitie 
once he arrived at Quebec, and that he would 
be happy when he got used to the white 
men’s ways. But he must eat now. Do you 
want to feed him a fish? 

Oumauk’s mind was diverted by this 
thought so they at once proceeded to the 
cage where the great white bear still lay 
with his head between his paws groaning 
and sighing. 

“Oh, Whitie, Whitie, Oumauk is here. 
He has come,” cried the child. At the 
sound of the childish voice the White Czar 




148 The White Czar 

raised his mighty head and looked at the 
boy. 

“Oumauk is here. He will give you a 
fine fish,” repeated the boy. 

To the amazement and horror of Mr. 
Adams, who stood by watching the proceed¬ 
ings curiously, the boy thrust his small hand 
through the planks towards the mighty 
jaw of the bear. 

“ Stop, stop, ’ ’ cried the white man. c 6 For 
God’s sake, don’t let him put his hands in 
there. That brute will bite‘them off.” 

“O no,” said Eiseeyou. “I am not 
afraid. They are old friends.” 

To the astonishment of every one, the 
mighty bear arose and stood on all fours; 
then, reaching out his head, he licked the 
hands of Oumauk with his long, supple 
red tongue. 

Then Oumauk passed his hands over the 
bear’s face and he seemed as delighted as a 
dog. 

When Oumauk had petted and talked to 
Whitie for a while, a fish was brought and 
to the surprise of every one but Eiseeyou, 
the bear took the fish and ate it greedily. 


The Wreck 


149 


After this Oumauk spent most of Ms time 
by the side of the White Czar’s cage, petting 
him and talking to him. 

All went well with the little expedition 
for about a week, and then the unexpected 
happened. The course they were pursuing 
was entirely out of any steamship lane. 
Only sealing and whaling vessels and an 
occasional revenue cutter ever traversed 
this dangerous portion of the Seven Seas. 
Their course lay in almost the same direc¬ 
tion as that of the icebergs that had been 
breaking away from the northern icefloe 
for several weeks and drifting away south¬ 
ward to mingle and melt in the great At¬ 
lantic. The floe of the bergs had nearly 
ceased, but hardly a day passed but that 
they saw many small cakes of ice. So for 
the past week they had kept a sharp look¬ 
out for these hidden dangers to unsuspect¬ 
ing ships. 

It was about twelve o’clock on the eighth 
day from Eskimo Village and The Spray 
was off the Newfoundland banks. 

It was a rather dark night, and the look¬ 
out at his post could see little, but he kept 



150 


The White Czar 


up an intense listening. Icebergs are often 
detected by sound, and also by a chilliness 
in the air. But no such sign was observed. 

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, 
the ship experienced a shock that shook 
her from stem to stern. She quivered and 
shuddered, and then there was a grinding, 
grating sound along her side. Then she 
seemed to sheer off from the berg and con¬ 
tinue on her way. She had been going at 
half speed, and the engineer immediately 
stopped his engine in order to take an in¬ 
ventory of damages. But old Neptune al¬ 
most immediatelv informed them, as the 
water began flowing freely into the small 
engine room. Every one in the cabin 
reached for as many clothes as he could get 
in both hands, without taking too much 
time, and started for the deck. 

Eiseeyou caught little Oumauk in his 
arms and hurried with him after the white 
men. 

On deck all was excitement. The crew 
were already preparing to lower the motor 
boat. Luckily it was a large one and could 
easily accommodate the dozen men of the 


The Wreck 


151 


crew. The ship had already listed badly, 
and in twenty minutes she had begun to 
sink rapidly. There seemed nothing to do 
but to trust to the motor boat. The sea was 
not very rough, but no one could tell what 
it would be like in a few hours. There was 
one thing however on which the captain 
pinned much hope. His boat “The Spray” 
was rigged with wireless and they at once 
sent out their S.O.S. cry for help, giving the 
latitude and longitude of the stricken ship 
as well as they could. 

Little Oumauk was rather sleepy and did 
not at first appreciate what had happened. 
But when Eiseeyou went down the ladder 
to the motor boat with him, his suspicions 
were aroused. 

“Where are we going?” he asked. “Are 
we leaving the ship?” 

“Yes,” replied Eiseeyou. “The ship is 
leaking. We are going to travel in the 
small boat for a while.” 

“Are we going to take Whitie with us?” 
asked Oumauk excitedly. 

Eiseeyou had foreseen the question and 
had his answer ready. 


152 


The White Czar 


“O no, we can’t,” he returned. “Our 
boat is too small. “If the ship sinks, 
Whitie will float away in his cage all right. ’ ’ 
By and by he will reach the shore, and then 
he will strike off one of the planks and get 
out. Perhaps he will get back to Eskimo 
Land before we do.” 

“Do you think Whitie wants to go back 
to Eskimo Land?” asked Oumauk, diverted 
by this idea. 

“Yes, I guess he does. He is all right, so 
don’t bother.” 

Secretly, however, Eiseeyou felt certain 
that the white czar would sleep at the bot¬ 
tom of the ocean. If it had been day and 
Oumauk had been fully awake, he would 
probably have asked many more perplexing 
questions and might have gotten at the 
truth. But he was very tired and sleepy, 
and soon his head lay back against Eisee¬ 
you’s shoulder and he slept. 

But Eiseeyou himself was far from 
sleepy. In his own mind he was much 
troubled. Like all the rest of his race he 
was very superstitious. Ever since the cap¬ 
ture of the great bear he had brooded over 


The Wreck 


153 


the event. Secretly he felt certain that 
this wreck had been caused by his treachery 
to The White Czar. 

Perhaps even the bear himself had 
brought it about, but more probably the 
god that controlled the wild creatures had 
brought it upon them. So marked is the 
Eskimo’s superstition that when he kills the 
first narwal of the season, he makes an of¬ 
fering to the god of hunting and especially 
that of the narwal, in order that he may 
have good luck for the rest of the season. 

The motor boat had barely gotten out of 
sight when the ship listed sharply on the 
port side and to the front. This caused the 
White Czar’s cage, which had been propped 
up on some timbers, to start sliding down 
the deck. Just as the ship ended up and 
the bow started to sink, the cage struck the 
rail and, due partly to the frantic effort of 
the bear turned a complete somersault and 
landed right side up on the water. Then a 
great wave swept it fifty feet away from 
the ship. This was very fortunate for the 
Czar, for otherwise the cage might have 
been drawn down by the suction of the 


154 


The White Czar 


sinking ship. But another wave caught the 
cage before the ship finally floundered and 
carried it still further away. Then the ship 
sank and the only object of the entire ex¬ 
pedition that was left in sight was the 
great bear, floating knee deep in the cold 
water in his wooden cage. 

When the Czar first felt the icy water on 
his shaggy legs he was glad. A sense of 
life and freedom thrilled him. 

This freezing water was his native ele¬ 
ment. True he was still surrounded by this 
hateful cage, which narrowed his world down 
to twelve feet in one direction and eight in 
the other, but he felt certain that it would 
float away. The waters which had always 
befriended him would help him. Then he 
remembered with a shudder his last experi¬ 
ence in the water—the men and the motor 
boat and the rope that had nearly strangled 
him, and the courage in his great stout heart 
wavered. Perhaps he was not going to es¬ 
cape after all. 

The bottom of his cage had been made 
perfectly tight, so that it now acted as a 
raft. The water was two feet deep in the 


The Wreck 


155 


cage due to the weight of the bear and the 
top of the cage, but that was no hardship to 
him. But the clumsy cage did not keep 
facing the seas as did the motor boat a mile 
away, so when it came into the trough, the 
water was four feet deep instead of two. 
Even so it would have gone rolling over and 
over but that the great shaggy beast inside 
trimmed it and steadied it just as cleverly 
as a man would have a fractious canoe. 

The art of balancing he was master of. 
He had learned it by sailing for miles upon 
rocking cakes of ice. What brute cunning 
could do to keep the cage right side up and 
from swamping, he could be trusted to do. 
But gradually it water soaked and came up 
from the wettings in the trough of the sea 
less and less buoyantly. Finally the water 
in the cruel cage was up to the bear’s sides. 
Truly his plight was getting desperate. At 
last when the water came up to his shoul¬ 
ders and he even had to swim a few strokes 
occasionally in the cruel cage, Eiseeyou’s 
prophecy seemed about to be fulfilled. It 
certainly looked as though he would sleep 
in the Atlantic. Meanwhile the motor-boat 


156 


The White Czar 


was having her troubles. The man at the 
wheel did not try to make any particular 
direction, but simply kept her headed 
towards the regularly rolling waves. He 
knew if she once got in the trough she might 
be capsized. So all the power was used to 
keep her facing the sea. Eveiy time she 
rose on the top of a high wave, the propeller 
would be out of water and would spin like 
a top. 

Then she would come down into the water 
again and the engine would resume its 
labored panting. 

The men talked but little. No one knew 
what the outcome of this disaster might be. 
Eiseeyou sat in the stern of the boat with 
Oumauk in his arms, listening for the regu¬ 
lar resounding slap of each succeeding wave 
on the bows of the little craft. 

As the hours wore wearily on, he noted 
that the swells were getting higher and 
higher and the sound when they struck the 
boat louder. Their plight was certainly 
desperate. 

It was just a gamble whether they would 
be picked up before the seas engulfed them. 


The Wreck 


157 


Finally a grey streak appeared in the 
east and they hailed it with joy. Eagerly 
the eyes of the little party watched the grey 
streak widen and take on color, until finally 
the golden rim of the sun came up out of 
the sea and it was daylight. Then to their 
great joy they discovered a three masted 
gasoline-driven fishing vessel coming to¬ 
wards them. She had evidently not seen 
them, so they at once set their signal of dis¬ 
tress. Soon she answered and in twenty 
minutes was alongside. 

“Ship Ahoy!” called a nasal voice from 
the fishing vessel, as soon as they came in 
hailing distance of the motor boat. “What 
shall I do for you? Haul you aboard?” 

“Ay, ay, that’s just w T hat we are looking 
for. But perhaps you had better take some 
of our passengers off first. We are pretty 
heavily loaded and have shipped a lot of 
water.” 

So The Three Bells, from Marble Head, 
owned and handled by Silas Perkins, Esq., 
manoeuvered until she was in position and 
then threw the motor boat a line. Finally 
she was made fast to the schooner and her 


158 


The White Czar 


passengers successfully transferred to the 
fishing boat, which reeked with the smell of 
salt fish. 

“Well, well,” cried Captain Silas Per¬ 
kins, as he viewed the sorry-looking men, 
“you are a rather watersoaked-looking lot. 
But I guess some hot coffee will make a dif¬ 
ference.” 

“But say captain,” he asked, grinning 
broadly, “you hain’t lost a bear, have you? 
A gol-durned big one.” 

“A bear!” cried Mr. Adams in astonish¬ 
ment, “I, I,-” 

“Oh, oh,” cried little Oumauk, who had 
been listening intently, “where is Whitie? 
I know Whitie is lost.” 

“Why, yes, I am reminded,” replied Mr. 
Adams. “I had entirely forgotten our 
prize passenger. Yes, Mr. Captain, per¬ 
haps we have lost a bear. What’s your 
item?” 

“Fust,” said Captain Perkins, “let me 
ax you a question or two. Did your ship 
strike another ship, or a berg, or something, 
and flounder in latitude fifty degrees, eight¬ 
een minutes and forty seconds, and longi- 



The Wreck 159 

tude fifty degrees and ten minutes or there¬ 
abouts ?” 

“That was just about where we were 
when we struck/’ said the captain of the 
unfortunate Spray. I believe that was 
the S.O.S. I sent out.” 

“Good!” cried Captain Perkins. “For 
once my Eben’s plaything has done some 
one some good. 

“You see my boy Eben is a dabster at 
wireless an’ when we came off on this here 
voyage, he said as how he wanted to rig 
up a wireless. So I said, ‘Go ahead. I 
guess it won’t do any harm.’ Well, last 
night he said as how the stuff was aflyin’ 
around pretty thick an’ as how he wanted 
to set up for a spell an’ see what he could 
hear. So he happened to be a listinin’ in, 
as he calls it, when you hollered for help. 
An’ by jimmerny crickets! he managed to 
get your position just right. We was only 
a few miles to the south, so we headed 
straight for your call. When we got there, 
as near as we could calculate, we didn’t see 
a durn thing, but just a great sort of pig 
pen cage floating about with a gol-darned 


160 


The White Czar 


great polar bear aswimmin’ about inside it. 
It had only sunk about two feet in the 
water, and he was standin’ inside the cage 
as prompt as you please, headed directly 
for the United States.” 

“O, O,” cried Oumauk. “Whitie is 
drowned. I know he is; Whitie is 
drowned.” 

“Ef Whitie is what you call that great 
brute, he ain’t drowned by a jugful. But 
he did get a good wetting. You see, men, it 
came about this way.” 

“My mate, Hank Jones, is alius a-dasting 
me to do suthing out of the ordinary. He is 
alius makin’ fun of my mechanics. You 
see, I am a mechanical genius. So when 
Hank saw this bear, he dasted me to rig a 
pulley and pull him on board, cage and all. 
An’ I tuck Hank’s dast and had him 
aboard in about fifteen minutes. He is as 
high and dry as a salt codfish this very min¬ 
ute, there in the stern of the Three Bells ” 

“Oh, oh,” cried Oumauk. “I am so glad 
Whitie is not drowned, and we can all go to 
Quebec just as we planned.” 


CHAPTER XII 


TWO CAPTIVES 

So it all turned out just as Oumauk had 
prophesied, Captain Perkins was intending 
to stop at Quebec with a portion of his 
catch of cod. But even if he had not been, 
he would gladly have gone out of his way 
to take them all to their destination, es¬ 
pecially after he had heard the story of 
Little Oumauk and the great white hear. 

“ Queerest story I ever heard/ ’ he said, 
spitting reflectively over the rail when Mr. 
Adams had finished relating it. “It is al¬ 
most as good as a story book and true to 
boot, which most books ain’t.” 

So finally the Three Bells touched at 
Quebec, that Canadian city so famous in 
history, and the twelve passengers from 
the expedition, and Eiseeyou and Oumauk, 
not to mention the White Czar, were all 
safely landed. Then after much hand¬ 
shaking on the part of Captain Perkins and 

161 


162 


The White Czar 


very cordial invitations to one and all to 
call on him at Marble Head, The Three 
Bells went on her way. 

A great dray soon appeared and the large 
cage containing the White Czar was loaded 
upon it, while the white men with Eiseeyou 
and Oumauk went to their destination in a 
taxi. 

To Eiseeyou the great city was like fairy¬ 
land, and he and Oumauk were destined to 
have many wonderful and wondering days 
exploring it. 

Mr. Adams at once took them to the great 
doctor whose address had been given them 
by the missionary. He received them gra¬ 
ciously and was much interested in the small 
boy from the Arctic, once Mr. Adams had 
told his story. After examining Oumauk’s 
eyes carefully, the doctor advised that he 
go to the hospital, which he said was a fine 
place where they would make Oumauk’s 
eyes as good as new. But he said it would 
take time. 

So Eiseeyou and Oumauk, accompanied 
by Mr. Adams went to the hospital. This 
first day Eiseeyou was too much amazed 


163 


Two Captives 

at the wonders of the city to describe them 
to Oumauk, but later on he made up for all 
this remissness. 

Arrived at the hospital, Oumauk had to 
say goodbye to Eiseeyou for that day, but 
the father promised to see him again on the 
morrow. They also comforted Oumauk by 
telling him that he could go out each day 
with his father and explore the city. They 
simply wanted him for treatment and he 
was free to come and go during certain 
hours, but he must sleep and eat at the 
hospital. 

Although Oumauk was rather frightened 
at being left alone, yet he was much com¬ 
forted with this arrangement, and finally 
became very philosophical, as is the way 
with his race. 

They first stripped the Eskimo boy and 
took his clothes all away from him. He 
thought this a great hardship as the gar¬ 
ments were his very best furs, although he 
did find them rather warm in this strange 
new country. They then put the wonder¬ 
ing boy in a bath tub and gave him a good 
scrubbing. This was to get rid of the body 


164 


The White Czar 


lice, but they told him it was to make him 
ready to get his sight. They then put him 
in a clean, wonderful bed, which seemed to 
him like fairyland, although he had gotten 
used to the bunks in the two ships on which 
he had travelled. 

But everything about him was strange 
these days, so he was not much amazed at 
anything. 

The nurse had to show him how to put 
on his nightdress, which was quite different 
from his auk skin shirt. She also had to 
tell him how to get into bed and cover him¬ 
self up with the clothes. 

Finally the lights were all put out and 
little Oumauk, the child of the snow, was 
sleeping peacefully in the land of the white 
man. 

Meanwhile his friend, whom he always 
called Whitie, even up to the very last time 
that he saw him just as he had when he had 
been a fuzzy cub, was also experiencing 
changes. He was driven away to the very 
heart of the city where a man who knew all 
about bears, or at least thought he did, came 
and inspected him. He was delighted with 


165 


Two Captives 

the huge, white beast and set to work at 
once to make a den for him. This was com¬ 
pleted in two or three days, so when Eisee- 
you and Oumauk finally visited the park 
where they were told that their friend was 
to live, they found him in fine quarters. 
That is, the men who had built them thought 
them fine. Whether the White Czar 
thought them fine or not, who shall say? 
But I am inclined to think that he simply 
made the best of them and bided his time, 
just as do most wild animals which are cap¬ 
tured when full-grown and taken into cap¬ 
tivity. 

His den was made in the side of a hill. 
The foundation was concrete. The entire 
den was twenty-five feet by twelve. The den 
was equally divided between a swimming 
pool and a platform of rocks, upon which 
the Czar could stretch himself when he was 
tired of the water. 

He at once recognized Eiseeyou and Ou¬ 
mauk, and came out of the pool to greet 
the boy. The keeper of the park was 
amazed to see the small, dark boy stick his 
fingers through the bars to the great brute. 


166 


The White Czar 


He cried out for him to stop. But Eisee- 
you told him in his quaint English that they 
were old friends. 

Finally the keeper himself became con¬ 
vinced that Oumauk was master of the sit¬ 
uation and he was persuaded to open the 
small door where the bear’s food was pushed 
in to him, in order that Oumauk might pet 
Whitie more freely. 

A curious crowd of white children had 
gathered about the outer fence of the cage 
to view, with awe in their hearts and their 
eyes, this strange scene of the small boy 
fondling the great head of the white bear 
as fearlessly as he would have a large dog. 
The keeper took special pains to explain to 
them that the bear had been the boy’s pet 
when he was small, and so knew him. But 
he warned all the white children to keep 
well away from the den. 

So each day Eiseeyou came to the hospital 
to visit Oumauk. 

Later on the two went to the park to see 
the White Czar. This was always the first 
place that they visited. 

After that Oumauk was willing that they 


Two Captives 167 

should see other things of interest, but he 
never neglected Whitie. 

“Whitie and I are both of us prisoners/* 
he said sadly one day when he was stroking 
the shaggy head of the Czar. “Whitie is 
a prisoner in his great cage and I am a 
prisoner in the dark. 

“He don’t like the cage and I don’t like 
the dark. I hope some day we will both be 
free. ’ ’ 

“When the doctor makes the light come 
again in the sun so I can see, I want to come 
here the very first thing and see Whitie. 
Then we must sell everything we have, and 
we will buy Whitie and go back to Eskimo 
Land. That is where we all belong.” 

Eiseeyou bit his lip and looked troubled, 
but he thought the same as Oumauk did. 
Eskimo Land was their home. They were 
out of place in the great city of the white 
man. Every one had been good to them, but 
they were out of place. 

Thus three weeks went by. Each day Ei¬ 
seeyou went to the hospital to get Oumauk, 
after this the two went to the park to see 
the White Czar, and then about the city 



168 


The White Czar 


sight-seeing. They visited the parks, the 
museum, and even went into several the¬ 
aters where Eiseeyou was much amazed by 
the strange pictures. He was most im¬ 
pressed when he saw a film of Eskimo Land, 
perhaps not his own particular country, but 
other arctic country. The fur-clad people, 
the dog teams and the komatiks, the seals, 
the walrus and the igloos were all there. 
How the white men could have gotten it so 
faithfully was a mystery to him. Then the 
automobiles, those strange machines that 
seemed almost to run themselves, amazed 
him, as did the telephone and the phono¬ 
graph, both of which he saw men using. 
The phonograph he deemed a machine 
bewitched, full of devils, and he always 
crossed himself and hurried little Oumauk 
away whenever he heard one playing in a 
store. 

The hand organ seemed more harmless, 
and he and Oumauk liked to listen to it, 
Eiseeyou was also much amused by the mon¬ 
key who held out his cap for small coins. 

Whenever the two went abroad, they were 
usually followed by curious children, who 


169 


Two Captives 

were much interested in Oumauk. They 
seemed friendly, and often gave the Eskimo 
boy candy or fruit, neither of which he had 
ever tasted before. 

Finally the crucial day in both their lives 
came around. It was the day when little 
Oumauk was to go under the knife in an 
attempt of the great doctor to bring back the 
light in the sun and the stone lamp. Eisee- 
you was allowed to be with them in the 
operating room. He sat by the bedside, 
holding Oumauk’s hand all through the 
operation. 

Before the operation several doctors 
made a thorough examination of Oumauk’s 
eyes, and then talked for a time about the 
case. Finally the surgeon came along and, 
patting the Eskimo boy on the cheek, told 
him they were ready. 

A rubber blanket was put under his head 
and shoulders, and one doctor stood with a 
basin of water and sponges to wash away 
the blood. First they put a strange instru¬ 
ment with six claws upon Oumauk *s eye. 
Each one of these six claws gripped the eye 
between the muscle and kept it from mov- 



170 


The White Czar 


ing during the operation. Then a local an¬ 
esthetic was administered, and the opera¬ 
tion began. 

Although the surgeon worked as carefully 
as he could, yet it hurt poor Oumauk se¬ 
verely and great tears streamed down his 
swarthy cheeks. Yet he did not even whim¬ 
per. His own hard life in the rigorous 
north, where men and even small chil¬ 
dren endure hardship without complaining, 
stood him in good stead. When the right 
eye had been operated upon, the left eye 
was treated in the same manner. 

The doctors were generous in their praise 
of Oumauk’s pluck and this helped a little. 
When the operation was over, Oumauk 
asked if he might open his eyes and see if 
the light had come back to the sun. He was 
much troubled when they told him that he 
must wait several days before the bandages 
could be removed. 

This disappointment was so great that he 
did cry a little. But they all told him that 
crying would hurt his chance of again see¬ 
ing the sun, so he soon stopped. 

After that whenever he and Eiseeyou 


171 


Two Captives 

went forth, Oumauk had to keep the ban¬ 
dage on his eyes, and it was darker than 
ever. 

It seemed to Oumauk and Eiseeyou that 
the day when they would take off the band¬ 
age would never come. But the clocks 
kept ticking steadily on, and the hours go¬ 
ing by, so at last the day arrived. 

Oumauk himself was so excited that he 
shook like a leaf when the doctors came into 
his ward. He had waited so patiently. The 
long night had been so very long. He had 
groped about in the dark, it seemed to him, 
for the whole of his life. At last the doctor 
gently removed the bandage and told Ou¬ 
mauk that he might open his eyes. 

“Oh, oh,” cried Oumauk as his eyelids 
flew open, “I can see, I can see, but not as 
I used to. Only a part of the light has come 
back to the sun.” 

‘ 4 That is all right, my boy. That is fine, ’ ’ 
cried the doctor, clapping him on the shoul¬ 
der. “I did not expect you would see very 
much without glasses. You will always 
have to wear glasses.” 

Then he brought out some strange shiny 


172 


The White Czar 


things which went over Oumauk’s nose and 
behind his ears, and tried several glasses 
of differing strength in them. Finally he 
found the right one and Oumauk could see 
almost perfectly. 

“That is fine. The operation is a great 
success,’’ said the doctor. “It is only a 
question of time when he will be all right.” 

The doctor rigged a shade for Oumauk’s 
eyes, to wear above the glasses. He ad¬ 
vised him to keep out of the strong sun light 
for several days and to get used to it grad¬ 
ually, and Eiseeyou promised to look out 
for him. 

Oumauk was all excitement to go and see 
Whitie at once, but the doctor told them to 
wait until the morrow then to go towards 
dusk when the sunlight was not so trying, 
so the Eskimo boy had to possess his soul 
with patience till the morrow. 

Eiseeyou confided to his son as they 
walked towards the park the good news that 
the doctor had given his services for the 
operation free; and that had cost them noth¬ 
ing. The charge at the hospital was only 


Two Captives 173 

going to be slight, so they had quite a sum 
of money left. 

“Oh, good,” cried Oumauk. “I feel so 
happy. Everything is coming out all right. 
We will have almost enough money to buy 
Whitie. Perhaps we can pay what we have 
and they will let us earn the rest and send 
it to them. Maybe we can take Whitie back 
with us.” 

But Eiseeyou himself had many misgiv¬ 
ings about the matter, although he did not 
confide them to his son. He simply grunted 
and smiled and said nothing. 

Arrived at the park, they made*their way 
hurriedly to the White Czar’s den, where 
they found that a large crowd of men, 
women, and children were gathered around 
the den. All were talking and much ex¬ 
cited, especially the children with whom the 
White Czar had become a great favorite. 
Eiseeyou could not tell what they were say¬ 
ing, so he worked his way close up to the 
bear’s den. 

To his great astonishment, he found the 
door of the den open and the White Czar 



174 


The White Czar 


gone. Oumauk was almost as quick to per¬ 
ceive what had happened as he. 

At the sight, a cry of pain escaped Ou¬ 
mauk. He put his hand to his glasses and 
rubbed them to make sure. Then he turned 
eagerly to his father. 

“Oh, oh,” he cried, “is Whitie really 
gone 1 ?” 

“Yes,” returned Eiseeyou. “He seems 
to be. Perhaps they have put him in an¬ 
other den.” 

“No,” said the superintendent of the 
park, who happened to be standing near. 
He had made the acquaintance of Eiseeyou 
and his son one day by the cage and learned 
from them much of the bear’s history, so 
was interested in them. 

“No, we have not put him in another den. 
He is gone, and I guess for good. We 
found the door open this morning just as 
you see it now, and the White Czar had 
disappeared. 

“We have searched all day for him in 
the city, but he has disappeared as though 
the earth had opened and swallowed him. 
There has been foul play. He was let out, 



175 


Two Captives 

and I know who did it too. I doubt very 
much if we ever see him again alive. He 
will turn up in the province of Quebec 
sooner or later, then there will be a great 
bear hunt and he will be shot.” 

4 

Then seeing the terrified look upon Ou¬ 
mauk’s face he hurried to add, “ Perhaps 
he will escape though. He was a clever 
bear. They will often make their way 
through thickly settled country without be¬ 
ing seen. The province of Quebec is not 
very thickly settled to the north. Perhaps 
he will escape.” 

“I know he will,” said Eiseeyou, more to 
console Oumauk than because he really be¬ 
lieved so. Like the superintendent of the 
park, he also believed that the White Czar 
would fall before some rifle bullet before 
he had travelled far in this strange country, 
even if he had gotten safely out of the 
city. 

“It is strange,” said the superintendent, 
patting Oumauk on the shoulder, “that no 
one saw him here in the city. But it is 
only a short distance to the river, down 
three streets and then along the broad street 


176 


The White Czar 


leading to the docks. Perhaps he found 
the short cut.” 

“They are very clever,” said Eiseeyou. 
“I guess he has escaped.” Then to Ou- 
mauk he said, “I know we will find him 
in Eskimo Land when we get home. Come, 
let’s go.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE FLIGHT NORTHWARD 

When the White Czar found himself 
transferred from the plank cage in which 
he had lived upon shipboard to the perma¬ 
nent den at the park, he was better suited 
than he had been in the cage. 

The den was much more commodious, 
and it had the additional advantage of con¬ 
taining a swimming pool. After three or 
four days he enjoyed the pool greatly. But 
his attitude towards it at first had been very 
strange. He would lie upon his rock plat¬ 
form and look at the water for hours. Fi¬ 
nally he reached down very carefully with 
his great white paw and touched it. Then 
he thrust his arm in to the shoulder. Even 
then he did not venture into the water until 
he had tested it by degrees. The truth was 
he was thinking of his last terrible experi¬ 
ence in the water when the rope had been 
thrown about his neck, and he had been 

177 


178 


The White Czar 


dragged so mercilessly after the motor boat. 
Also his experience floating about in the 
cage on the Atlantic had tended to make 
him suspicious of water. Water in which 
he had always so revelled. 

Finally however he was playing about in 
his pool and disporting himself on the rocky 
shelf in his den with a playfulness that was 
almost grotesque in so large an animal. 

But it must not be imagined that the 
White Czar was satisfied with his lot, or 
that he was contented to settle down for 
the rest of his life in this twenty-five by 
twelve den. Not he. 

He remembered too well the freedom of 
the broad icefloe and the low lying barrens 
along the coast. He had seen too much of 
the sparkling, tingling Arctic Ocean to ever 
rest in a stifling prison like this. 

He simply made the best of his hard con¬ 
ditions and bided his time. Few wild ani¬ 
mals which have been captured when full 
grown, as was the White Czar, ever become 
used to confinement. They may look very 
tame and well content. But behind this 
seeming content and docility is a terrible 


179 


The Flight Northward 

rage and hidden fire that will some day 
break out and cost some one his life, or 
else the escape of the wild creature at the 
first possible moment. 

The White Czar was a great favorite with 
the children who swarmed each day about 
his den to watch him playing in his pool 
or stretching his great muscles on the rocks. 
No matter how small the cage of a wild 
animal is, he always takes the proper 
amount of exercise each day by stretching 
himself. So it was with the Czar. If he 
ever got a chance to run for his life and 
his freedom, his muscles must not be 
stiff. 

The visit of Oumauk and Eiseeyou to the 
den each day was a great comfort to the 
bear. He learned to time their coming, so 
that he would always be standing at the bars 
watching for them when they arrived. But 
his affection was all for Oumauk. Eisee¬ 
you he had viewed with a suspicion ever 
since the day when he had sat in the stern of 
the motor boat and watched the cruel rope 
almost choke the life out of him. He did 
not fully connect his capture with the Es- 



180 


The White Czar 


kimo, but in a dim sort of way he imagined 
that he was a party to it. 

The White Czar might have lived the rest 
of his life in the den, admired by the chil¬ 
dren and with plenty to eat and comfortable 
quarters; with everything but that price¬ 
less thing he most prized, his freedom, had 
not a strange event intervened in his behalf. 

The man who cared for the bear’s den, in¬ 
cluding another den in which were two large 
black bears, and also for the wolf and fox 
dens, as well as the deer park, was a Scotch¬ 
man named McAndrews. 

He had general charge, but he was as¬ 
sisted by an Italian of hot temper and 
treacherous disposition, named Tony Gari¬ 
baldi—a good name for a bad man. 

It was during the second year of the great 
war, and wages in all departments of labor 
were very high. But Tony was seemingly 
not satisfied, although he was getting a 
large wage. So he went to the superinten¬ 
dent and asked for more pay. 

The superintendent told him that he was 
not earning what he was then receiving and 
if his wages were changed in any way, it 


181 


The Flight Northward 

would be to scale them down. At this Tony 
became insolent and the superintendent 
fired him. 

Tony, who had really been well pleased 
with his present wage, was furious and 
vowed vengeance. The form that his re¬ 
venge took quite amazed the officials of the 
park the next morning. 

The night following Tony’s discharge, 
the White Czar lay upon his stone platform 
peacefully sleeping. The day had been very 
hot and he was tired, not with any exercise, 
but with the confinement and the heat. 
Presently he was aroused by hearing a noise 
near his den. He opened his eyes and 
raised his great head. The dark, little man 
who cleaned out his den each morning was 
at the bars. 

Had he come to clean out the den 1 ? He 
had never done that at night. 

The White Czar was not sure. But he 
stretched himself and plunged into his pool. 
If the den was to be cleaned, he would be 
clean also. 

When he climbed back on to his platform, 
he was much amazed to discover that the 


182 


The White Czar 


large door through which the men always 
entered his den was open. It was wide 
open, and the man who he had supposed was 
to clean the den was standing several rods 
away. 

At first the White Czar thought his eyes 
must be deceiving him, so he went over and 
poked the door with his nose and smelled 
of it. It certainly was open. But more 
than that. A breath of freedom, the wind 
from the out-of-doors, free and untram¬ 
meled was blowing through it. It was a 
north wind and it smelled of water. 

A thrill went through the great beast. 
Very cautiously he thrust his head through 
the door. It did not catch him as he had 
half expected. So he thrust his shoulders 
through and then passed outside. He 
stretched himself and then reared on his 
hind legs and looked over the fence that sur¬ 
rounded his den. The Italian was watch¬ 
ing him. But when a second later the great 
bear vaulted lightly over the fence, the 
Italian took to his heels and ran as though 
his life depended on his flight. He ran so 


The Flight Northward 183 

far and so fast that he was never seen in 
the city again. 

But the White Czar paid no attention to 
him. He was looking up at the starry 
heavens and smelling the free, fresh wind. 
He looked this way and that, and finally 
decided. He would go towards the wind. 
This was a very wise course on his part for 
it would lead him through three deserted 
streets to the great river. 

It was two o’clock in the morning. The 
early traffic had not yet begun. At the en¬ 
trance to the first street the great bear 
looked warily down its strange, straight 
pavements and saw it was deserted. So, 
with a shambling trot, his great claws rat¬ 
tling strangely on the stones, he trotted to 
the end of the street. The second street also 
was deserted, so down that he fled. The 
third street brought him in sight of the 
river. The wharf at the end of this street 
was also deserted, although the wharf next 
to it was quite busy where some men were 
loading a steamer. But the White Czar 
was not looking for men. He had seen 
enough of them to last him for the rest of 


184 


The White Czar 


his life, so he glided silently along, keeping 
in the shadows whenever he could. Finally, 
after considerable slinking and skulking on 
his part, he reached the end of the wharf. 

There he slipped almost as silently into 
the water as an otter might have done, and 
sank from sight. When he next appeared, 
it was only his head that showed and it was 
a hundred feet from the wharf. After that 
his head might occasionally have been seen 
popping up until he reached the middle of 
the channel. Then he struck out boldly 
and swam for the northern shore. 

It was a five mile swim, for the great river 
that drains five of the largest fresh water 
lakes in the world was broad here. 

But the White Czar who is best of all 
swimmers among quadrupeds made the dis¬ 
tance in about half an hour. When he fi¬ 
nally struggled up on the bank, he shook 
himself and looking again at the heavens 
tested the wind. It was a strange country to 
him. The cities and towns of men, with their 
strange inventions were all about him. Yet 
the wind and the sky were just the same 
everywhere. Man could not change them. 


185 


The Flight Northward 

So the great bear was guided by them. 

Of course be did not know the north star. 
Yet who shall say but that this bright 
luminary bad a message for him*? There 
seemed to be no affinity in the great bear’s 
nose for the magnetic pole, yet that also 
pulled him strangely. But most of all be 
felt the lure of the great wilderness of the 
province of Quebec that primaeval wilder¬ 
ness that lies just beyond the boundaries of 
civilization. Few Americans appreciate 
the fact that the province of Quebec 
stretches away to the north of the great 
river for twelve hundred miles, before the 
boundary of Labrador is reached. 

It was the lure of this great wilderness, 
so much akin to his own wild northland that 
the White Czar felt and he did not waste 
any time in answering the call. For two 
hours he trotted steadily forward, keeping 
away from the smooth, broad trails which 
smelled so strongly of men. Henceforth 
this scent of man he would flee from with 
all his strength. 

So he guided his way in open fields and 
woods and kept out of the sight and smell 


186 


The White Czar 


of everything that pertained to man. When 
the stars began to pale, he crept into the 
very heart of a dense swamp which the in¬ 
genuity of the Canadian farmers had not 
yet conquered, and slept through the day. 
When darkness came, he crept forth again 
and once more took up his steady untiring 
gallop northward. 

He did not stop that night for anything 
to eat, he was too much obsessed with the 
idea of flight. He must gallop and gallop 
and gallop. So that night he covered over 
fifty miles. Again at the approach of dawn 
he hid in the densest wood that he could dis¬ 
cover. There he once more slept away the 
daylight. 

When the friendly night again appeared, 
he crawled out and fled northward, and fifty 
more good English miles were put between 
him and the great city from which he had 
escaped. 

Just at dawn as he was thinking of find¬ 
ing a hiding place for the day, he came out 
into an open pasture and smelled a scent 
which was new to him; it was a strong ani¬ 
mal scent. 


The Flight Northward 187 

Then the White Czar remembered that 
he was ravenously hungry. 

He had come a hundred and twenty miles 
without food. So he crept cautiously for¬ 
ward. Then a score of small white animals 
jumped up almost in front of him and be¬ 
gan running wildly about. 

The sound they made was like the bleat¬ 
ing of the seal pups. 

At the thought of seal pups the White 
Czar’s mouth fairly watered. 

He had never even heard of sheep, but 
these small white creatures looked and 
smelled good. So he made after them. 

In a few seconds he was along side a 
large ewe, for the Czar had surprised a flock 
of Canadian sheep. One blow from the 
great bear’s paw broke the sheep’s back. 
The mighty hunter soon dispatched it and 
then, seizing the dead sheep in his powerful 
jaws made for the deep woods. That day 
he alternately slept and feasted upon mut¬ 
ton. This was the first of many good meals 
that he made from sheep. 

Two days later, at twilight, just as he was 
starting for his long night gallop, he sur- 


188 


The White Czar 


prised his cousin, the black bear, feasting 
upon something at the edge of the woods. 

The White Czar was much surprised at 
the sight of this black bear. All the bears 
he had ever seen had been white. But this 
bear was much smaller than he, so he 
charged and put him to flight. He was re¬ 
warded by finding the black bear had been 
feasting on a fawn which he had just killed. 
So the white marauder finished the fawn 
and went on his way rejoicing. 

On another occasion the White Czar also 
profited by the example of the Black 
Cousin. This was when he discovered a 
black bear fishing. He was sitting on a 
rock at the edge of the stream watching 
the water intently. For some time the 
White Czar watched the black bear but 
could not discover what he was doing. 

But finally the paw of the black fisher¬ 
man shot out, and a great fish went flapping 
on to the low bank. The White Czar was 
much surprised, but when the black bear 
fisherman caught the next fish, the Czar 
rushed out and drove him away with such 
ferocity that he forgot his fish and the Czar 



The Czar rushed out and drove the black 

bear away. 


























189 


The Flight Northward 

feasted upon it. After that he often fished 
himself in the streams which ran into the 
sea. 

The White Czar always travelled about 
ten miles inland. He did not want to fol¬ 
low the sea coast, for he had discovered that 
men lived along the coast. He would keep 
as far away from them as he could and still 
keep in touch with the sea. 

Then this wonderful country abounded 
in strange berries which were delicious to 
the taste. This was another thing that the 
white bear learned of his black cousin. 
There were also many roots which were good 
eating. Altogether it was a wonderful 
country through which the White Czar fled. 
But it was not his country. His home was 
by the wild Arctic sea, upon the ice floe, 
amid the ice and snow. This country was 
too tame, too warm, too comfortable. 

He wanted something more boisterous, 
more difficult, something against which he 
might pit his great strength. 

Finally after about a month he came to a 
good-sized stream where there were several 
beaver dams. He had also seen many cari- 



190 The White Czar 

bou signs that day, so be was beginning to 
feel at home. 

The ptarmigan likewise were plenty. 
Surely be was coming into bis own. 

Tbis river did not look like the rivers be 
bad crossed in bis flight through the prov¬ 
ince of Quebec. It was more rugged, more 
rocky. The water ran more swiftly. It 
was more turbulent, like the racing blood in 
the veins of the White Czar. With an exul- 
tance that be bad not felt since bis capture 
two months before, the white bear plunged 
into the river and swam it. The water 
swirled about him and be battled with the 
current. It made him glad. Here was 
something to fight. He reached the further 
bank and shook himself, then raised his 
great head and sniffed the wind. There 
was a tang about it that he had not 
smelled in many a week. It was fairly cold. 
It made him distend his nostrils and take in 
great breaths. Did it smell of salt water? 
Was it the open sea that he smelled? The 
great bear could not tell. But one thing he 
did know. He was at home in Labrador at 
last. The fell clutch of civilization would 


191 


The Flight Northward 

never again grip him. He was back in his 
native wilds. He would come and go as he 
wished. No mere man creature should ever 
again fling a rope over his great head and 
drag him to that cramped cage. He would 
flght to the death before that should happen 
again. 

He was free, free, and would remain so, 
until the wild arctic winds and the cold 
finally conquered him and he lay down to 
sleep with his sires. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE LAST MEETING 

Eiseeyou and Oumauk stood on the slip¬ 
pery sides of Omingmong Mountain, as the 
Eskimos called that dark sinister mountain 
on which Eiseeyou, Tunkine, and Tucksu 
had made their famous kill of musk ox. 

Eiseeyou had promised his son that he 
would take him to the spot and show him 
where he had killed the first White Czar, the 
sire of Whitie, as Oumauk still called his 
own particular white bear. 

They were in the very heart of the frozen 
snowclad windswept tundra. That frozen 
desolate belt that stretches entirely around 
the globe, between the timber line and the 
arctic ice. A region where only reindeer 
moss and creeping willows flourish peren¬ 
nially, and where the caribou, the reindeer, 
and the musk ox alone thrive, although cer¬ 
tain foxes and also the dread white wolf eke 
out a scant living in this desolate region. 

192 


193 


The Last Meeting 

Eiseeyou and Oumauk stood by the very 
boulder where the former had killed the 
first White Czar in the desperate encounter 
that so nearly cost him his own life. 

He was describing with all of a boy’s ar¬ 
dor just how he had rounded the boulder 
and come upon the monster. He then told 
of how he had fired quickly and merely 
wounded the great bear in the head. This 
had so enraged the Czar that he had struck 
the rifle from his hand, and then the two had 
clenched. Eiseeyou dwelt with special rel¬ 
ish on the awful moment when the mighty 
fighter had slowly crushed him in his deadly 
embrace, and then told of how he had sunk 
his knife into the monster’s heart. He did 
not fail to point out his cleverness in dig¬ 
ging under the dead bear to protect himself 
from the deadly cold of the winter’s night. 

To all of this Oumauk listened with wide 
open eyes, and with his mouth agape in 
wonder, all of which pleased his father. 

Two years had now elapsed since Eisee¬ 
you and Oumauk had returned to Eskimo 
Land after their eventful visit to the great 
city. Oumauk had grown to a stalwart lad 


194 


The White Czar 


of eleven years. He was tall and muscular 
for a boy of that age, and was destined to be 
a mighty hunter like his father. In the 
hollow of his arm he easily carried a small 
rifle as he stood erect and alert, listening 
to the story of this adventure. 

“I do wish I could see Whitie again, and 
know he was all right, ” said Oumauk, with 
a deep sigh when the tale had been con¬ 
cluded. The desire to see Whitie once more 
was almost an obsession with the lad. Al¬ 
though so much time had elapsed, and al¬ 
though Eiseeyou had told him again and 
again that the White Czar had probably 
fallen before some rifle bullet in the Cana¬ 
dian wilderness, yet Oumauk never gave up 
hope. He was always watching and wait¬ 
ing for one more glimpse of Whitie. 

44 Well, perhaps you will,” said Eiseeyou. 
Secretly he did not expect it, but for once 
he would humor Oumauk’s great desire. 

The two stood looking over the place of 
the deadly encounter for several minutes 
in silence, then Eiseeyou turned and gazed 
across the tundra towards the frozen Arctic 
Ocean which he knew was about ten miles 


195 


The Last Meeting 

to the East. As he gazed, his expression 
became fixed, and his keen eyes seemed to 
take on an even more penetrating expres¬ 
sion. Finally he shaded his face with his 
hand and his expression became even more 
intent. 

Oumauk, who had noted his absorption, 
also gazed far across the frozen tundra. 
But his eyesight was not as good as his 
father’s, so he could make out nothing. At 
last Eiseeyou spoke. 

“ There is something out there that I 
can’t make out. It is white like the snow, 
but it moves. It is coming this way. Take 
the glass and see if you can make it out.” 
He handed Oumauk the small field glass 
which he always carried. 

The boy took the glass excitedly and 
placed it to his eyes, first removing his 
glasses which he still had to wear. For a 
long time he gazed eagerly, but was silent. 

At last he dropped the glasses in the snow 
in his excitement and fairly shouted. “It’s 
Whitie, it’s Whitie! He is coming to the 
mountain.” 

Eiseeyou smiled at him indulgently. 


196 


The White Czar 


“Yes,” he said. “I see that is a white 
bear, but what makes you think it is 
Whitie? All white bears are Whitie to 
you.” 

“Oh no,” cried Oumauk, fairly dancing 
up and down in his delight. 

“It is Whitie. I can tell his trot and I 
know his face. 

“No other white bear looks like Whitie. 
I know it is him. 

“I am going down to meet him.” 

“Stop,” cried Eiseeyou sternly. “You 
do not know that it is Whitie and even if it 
was, you could not get near him after this 
long time. Besides if you did, he would 
probably bite your head off.” 

Oumauk looked reproachfully at his 
father. 

“Whitie not know me? Whitie bite me? 
You wait and see.” 

“You must not go Oumauk,” said Eisee¬ 
you again, but Oumauk paid no attention 
to his sire. Instead he stood his rifle up 
against the boulder and tightened his belt 
just as his father had done upon that mo¬ 
mentous occasion several years before when 


197 


The Last Meeting 

he had slid down the mountain side to save 
the dead musk ox from the wolfish sledge 
dogs. 

Secretly Eiseeyou was much pleased with 
this venturesome spirit of Oumauk’s, but 
he still remonstrated feebly. 

“Well,” he said, “if you must go, be care¬ 
ful. I will keep him covered with my rifle 
so I can shoot if he attacks you. Look out 
and do not get to sliding too fast.” 

But Oumauk did not hear this last ad¬ 
monition, for he was sliding rapidly down 
the slippery slope. 

In a few seconds he stood up at the bot¬ 
tom of the mountain and waved his hand 
to his father and Eiseeyou waved back. 

Then the watching Eskimo on the moun¬ 
tainside was treated to the most amazing 
sight that he had ever witnessed, although 
he was widely versed in the ways of the 
wild. 

The great bear by this time was about two 
hundred yards from the foot of the moun¬ 
tain. As the bear’s eyesight is rather poor, 
he probably had not seen Oumauk. 

Although he was entirely unarmed, with 


198 


The White Czar 


tlie exception of the hunting knife in his 
belt, yet the boy began walking rapidly to¬ 
wards the great beast, occasionally stopping 
to whistle shrilly by blowing between his 
fingers. This was the way he had called 
Whitie when he was a cub. 

At the first sound of the whistle, the 
great, shaggy beast stopped to look and 
listen. He had heard, but could not locate 
the sound. 

Then Oumauk whistled again and fol¬ 
lowed up that experiment by giving a loud 
hoo, hoo, hoo, the cry which the Eskimo 
uses to his dog team. This had also been 
one of the calls that he had used with Whitie 
when he had been a cub. 

For several seconds the White Czar stood 
perfectly still, during which time Eiseeyou 
covered him with his rifle. Oumauk, chanc¬ 
ing to look back at his father, saw that the 
rifle was raised and hastily moved over a 
few paces to the left in order to bring his 
own body directly in range. 

Eiseeyou saw the movement and lowered 
his rifle. The nerve of the lad pleased him 
greatly and he did not raise the gun again, 


199 


The Last Meeting 

although his heart fairly stood in his mouth 
at what he saw. 

Once more Oumauk whistled, then the 
clear, ringing voice of the boy floated up to 
Eiseeyou. 

“Whitie, Whitie, come it is Oumauk. He 
used to feed you the seal pup. He used to 
feed you niksuk. He used to feed you the 
walrus, I-wok. He is your friend. You 
know Oumauk, Whitie, Whitie, come. 
Hoo, hoo, hoo.” 

Then the great bear seemed to make up 
his mind and he trotted slowly forward until 
he was about fifty feet from the boy. Here 
he again stopped uncertain. Once more the 
clear voice of the boy floated up to Eisee¬ 
you. 

“Whitie, Whitie come. It is Oumauk, 
Oumauk your friend. 

Then the White Czar, magnificent in all 
his seven hundred pounds, trotted up until 
he could smell the outstretched hand of Ou¬ 
mauk. 

But the boy himself made no move. He 
just stood still and waited for his huge 
friend to make the advances. 



200 


The White Czar 


Twice the White Czar walked slowly 
about him and finally even sniffed his 
leather pants. Still Oumauk made no move 
on his part. 

Finally the great beast walked slowly 
by him twice, rubbing his sides against the 
boy’s body as he moved, first on one side 
and then on the other. Then he turned and 
walked slowly away for a few yards. There 
he stood looking back over his shoulder at 
the boy. 

“Whitie, Whitie,” cried the boy, “stay 
with Oumauk. Oumauk wants you Whitie. 
Stay with Oumauk.” 

The bear seemed to listen intently as 
though he sought to catch the meaning in 
the sounds. Then he turned his head to¬ 
wards the frozen Arctic Ocean and trotted 
silently away. Several times he stopped to 
look back, but each time the stop was shorter 
than the last. 

Smaller and smaller he grew, and whiter 
and whiter against the snow. The blue 
shadows of the coming night were fast 
falling. 

The sun had shown only an hour that day 


201 


The Last Meeting 

and they had seen the White Czar at full 
noonday. Finally even the keen sight of 
Eiseeyou could no longer discern the white 
vibrating object far across the fading snow, 

so he put up the glass and looked for Ou- 
mauk. 

He was climbing laboriously back up the 
mountainside. 

“Wait, I will come down/’ cried Eisee¬ 
you. “There is nothing more to see up 
here.” So he slid down the mountain, and 
a few seconds later stood by the side of the 
excited boy. 

“Did you see Whitie? Did you see him 
good ? Did you see what a mountain he is ? 
He looks as large as a bull walrus.” 

“'Yes, ” said Eiseeyou with a strange thrill 
in his voice. “I saw all I wanted to of 
him. It made me much afraid. My blood 
was as cold as snow water. My heart was 
like ice. Here is your rifle Oumauk. We 
must start for the komatiks and the dog 
teams. Tunkine and Tucksu will be won¬ 
dering if we are lost.” 

For many minutes they trudged over the 
snow in silence. Then Oumauk spoke, 


202 The Last Meeting 

“Will Whitie ever come back? Shall I 
ever see him again ? 

“I thought he seemed to be saying good¬ 
bye. That is what the white men say. I 
thought Whitie was saying it.” 

Eiseeyou patted the boy’s shoulder and 
looked lovingly down at him. 

“I was just thinking that myself,” he 
said. “Yes, I am certain. 

“The God of the wild creatures has called 
The White Czar and he has answered the 
call. It is well. His place is on the icefloe 
among the seal and the walrus. You must 
not wish him back. 

“The winds and the snow and the cold 
have called him. 

“They are what the white man calls Na¬ 
ture, and when they call the animals obey. 
Even man has to obey her voice. Yes, the 
winds the cold and the snow have called 
him, and he has answered. It is well.” 


THE END 


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